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aront's avatar
aront
Helper I
11 years ago

Storing Power Query M queries in Git?

So I realize many people come to Power BI from the Excel world. But I am sure there are lot's of people coming from the open source world. From our perspective a query is a little program and programs should be managed in a SCCS like Git. That way I can version queries, share them with others who can make changes and import them into whatever report I need them.

 

Here is another scenario where storing in something like Git is so important: In Excel and O365 you can store power queries in a Power BI site - but that is a disaster. I did it once, my Excel file crashed and I lost 2 hours of query work. I said to myself, great I saved them on O365 I can just reuse them - but of course all I got back was a link to some internal binary. The "original" query is stored in the Excel file but since that file crashed and burned without having a recoverable backup of the lost work - all that work went down the tubes.

 

I did find this little post online, but the approach seems to require you have the text file in a local directory, so I'm not sure its relevant for published reports on powerbi.com

 

Anyone have any good ideas besides copy/paste functions into reports?

 

If not, I will add it as a feture request and anyone interested can upvote it.

 

 

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6 Replies

  • potyarkin's avatar
    potyarkin
    New Member
    8 years ago

    I too consider it essential to manage any source code with version control system. I was rather disappointed to find out there is no easy way to do so with Power Query.

     

    That's why I have started the LibPQ project: https://github.com/sio/LibPQ/ It enables you to store source code in local files or on the web server, and to load those modules into your workbooks.

     

    I hope you'll find it useful too.

  • curth's avatar
    curth
    Power BI Team
    11 years ago

    Please do file this as a feature request. Of course, nothing prevents you from storing code in GitHub and copying it manually into your query -- but this is obviously tedious and error-prone. I personally keep code samples at https://gist.github.com/CurtHagenlocher

  • st_0999's avatar
    st_0999
    Helper II
    3 years ago

    This is a really good idea. 

    I have so many queries with so many functions (as M-code), across workbooks. 

    If I could maintain the functions in a Git, and just import them into the relevant workbooks, or dataflows (as a query that pulls in another query), it would save so much code duplication. 

     

    For example now, if I have to modify one function, and I have 20 excel workbooks, I have to modify that function 20 times. 

     

    Microsoft already do this for LAMBDAS, and normal excel formulas. I think, they should do it for Power Query and M-Code scripts too.