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Release 6.8.2


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NOTE: Transforms are a part of the underlying language, which is not directly accessible to users. This content is maintained for reference purposes only. For more information on the user-accessible equivalent to transforms, see Transformation Reference.

Replaces values in the specified column or columns with the specified value, which can be a literal or an expression. Expressions can use conditional functions to filter the set of rows.

The set transform is used to replace entire cell values. For replacement of partial cell values using literals or patterns, use the replace transform. See Replace Transform.

Basic Usage

Literal example: 

set col: Country value: 'USA'

Output: Sets the values of all rows in the Country column to USA

Multi-column Literal example: 

set col: SSN,Phone value: '##REDACTED###'

Output: Sets the values of all rows in the SSN and Phone columns to ##REDACTED##

Expression example:

set col: isAmerica value: IF(Country == 'USA', true', 'false')

Output: If the value in the Country column is USA, then the value in isAmerica is set to true

Placeholder example:

You can substitute a placeholder value for the column name, which is useful if you are applying the same function across multiple columns. For example:

set col:score1,score2 value:IF ($col == 0, AVERAGE($col), $col)

Output: In the above transform, the values in score1 and score2 are set to the average of the column value when the value in the column is 0. Note that the computation of average is applied across all rows in the column, instead of just the filtered rows.

Window function example:

You can use window functions in your set transforms:

set col: avgSales value: ROLLINGAVERAGE(POS_Sales, 7, 0) group: saleDate order: saleDate

Output: Calculate the value in the column of avgSales to be the rolling average of the POS_Sales values for the preceding seven days, grouped and ordered by the saleDate column. For more information, see Window Functions.

Syntax and Parameters

set col:col1,[col2] value:(expression) [group: group_col] 

TokenRequired?Data TypeDescription
setYtransformName of the transform
col1YstringColumn name
col2NstringColumn name
valueYstringExpression that generates the value to store in the column
groupNstringIf you are using aggregate or window functions, you can specify a group expression to identify the subset of records to apply the value expression.

For more information on syntax standards, see Language Documentation Syntax Notes.

col1, col2

Identifies the column and optional additional columns to which to apply the transform.

set col: MyCol value: 'myNewString'

Output: Sets value in  MyCol column to myNewString.

Usage Notes:

Required?Data Type
YesString (column name)

value

Identifies the expression that is applied by the transform. The value parameter can be one of the following types:
  • test predicates that evaluate to Boolean values (value: myAge == '30' yields a true or false value), or
  • computational expressions ( value: abs(pow(myCol,3)) ).

The expected type of value expression is determined by the transform type. Each type of expression can contain combinations of the following:

  • literal values:  value: 'Hello, world'
  • column references:  value: amountOwed * 10
  • functions:   value: left(myString, 4)

  • combinations:  value: abs(pow(myCol,3))

The types of any generated values are re-inferred by the platform.

Usage Notes:

Required?Data Type
YesString (literal, column name, or expression)

group

Identifies the column by which the dataset is grouped for purposes of applying the transform.

If the value parameter contains aggregate or window functions, you can apply the group parameter to specify subsets of records across which the value computation is applied. 

You can specify one or more columns by which to group using comma-separated column references. 

Usage Notes:

Required?Data Type
NoString (column name)


Examples


Tip: For additional examples, see Common Tasks.

Example - Clean up marketing contact data with replace, set, and extract

This example illustrates the different uses of the following transformations to replace or extract cell data:
  • set - defines the values to use in a predefined column. See Set Transform.

    Tip: Use the derive transform to generate a new column containing a defined set of values. See Derive Transform.

  • replace - replaces a string literal or pattern appearing in the values of a column with a specific string. See Replace Transform.
  • extract - extracts a pattern-based value from a column and stores it in a new column. See Extract Transform.

Source:

The following dataset contains contact information that has been gathered by your marketing platform from actions taken by visitors on your website. You must clean up this data and prepare it for use in an analytics platform.

LeadIdLastNameFirstNameTitlePhoneRequest
LE160301001JonesCharlesChief Technical Officer415-555-1212reg
LE160301002LyonsEdward 415-012-3456download whitepaper
LE160301003MartinMaryCEO510-555-5555delete account
LE160301004SmithTaliaEngineer510-123-4567free trial

 

Transformation:

Title column: For example, you first notice that some data is missing. Your analytics platform recognizes the string value, "#MISSING#" as an indicator of a missing value. So, you click the missing values bar in the Title column. Then, you select the Replace suggestion card. Note that the default replacement is a null value, so you click Edit and update it:

Transformation Name Edit column with formula
Parameter: Columns Title
Parameter: Formula if(ismissing([Title]),'#MISSING#',Title)

Request column: In the Request column, you notice that the reg entry should be cleaned up. Add the following transformation, which replaces that value:

Transformation Name Replace text or pattern
Parameter: Column Request
Parameter: Find `{start}reg{end}`
Parameter: Replace with Registration

The above transformation uses a Alteryx® pattern as the expression of the on: parameter. This expression indicates to match from the start of the cell value, the string literal reg, and then the end of the cell value, which matches on complete cell values of reg only.

This transformation works great on the sample, but what happens if the value is Reg with a capital R? That value might not be replaced. To improve the transformation, you can modify the transformation with the following Alteryx pattern in the on parameter, which captures differences in capitalization:

Transformation Name Replace text or pattern
Parameter: Column Request
Parameter: Find `{start}{[R|r]}eg{end}`
Parameter: Replace with 'Registration'

Add the above transformation to your recipe. Then, it occurs to you that all of the values in the Request column should be capitalized in title or proper case:

Transformation Name Edit column with formula
Parameter: Columns Request
Parameter: Formula proper(Request)

Now, all values are capitalized as titles.

Phone column: You might have noticed some issues with the values in the Phone column. In the United States, the prefix 555 is only used for gathering information; these are invalid phone numbers.

In the data grid, you select the first instance of 555 in the column. However, it selects all instances of that pattern, including ones that you don't want to modify. In this case, continue your selection by selecting the similar instance of 555 in the other row. In the suggestion cards, you click the Replace Text or Pattern transformation.

Notice, however, that the default Replace Text or Pattern transformation has also highlighted the second 555 pattern in one instance, which could be a problem in other phone numbers not displayed in the sample. You must modify the selection pattern for this transformation. In the on: parameter below, the Alteryx pattern has been modified to match only the instances of 555 that appear in the second segment in the phone number format:

Transformation Name Replace text or pattern
Parameter: Column Phone
Parameter: Find `{start}%{3}-555-%*{end}`
Parameter: Replace with '#INVALID#'
Parameter: Match all occurrences true

Note the wildcard construct has been added (%*). While it might be possible to add a pattern that matches on the last four characters exactly (%{4}), that matching pattern would not capture the possibility of a phone number having an extension at the end of it. The above expression does.

NOTE: The above transformation creates values that are mismatched with the Phone Number data type. In this example, however, these mismatches are understood to be for the benefit of the system consuming your Alteryx output.

LeadId column: You might have noticed that the lead identifier column (LeadId) contains some embedded information: a date value and an identifier for the instance within the day. The following steps can be used to break out this information. The first one creates a separate working column with this information, which allows us to preserve the original, unmodified column:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula LeadId
Parameter: New column name 'LeadIdworking'

You can now work off of this column to create your new ones. First, you can use the following replace transformation to remove the leading two characters, which are not required for the new columns:

Transformation Name Replace text or pattern
Parameter: Column LeadIdworking
Parameter: Find 'LE'
Parameter: Replace with ''

Notice that the date information is now neatly contained in the first characters of the working column. Use the following to extract these values to a new column:

Transformation Name Extract text or pattern
Parameter: Column to extract from LeadIdworking
Parameter: Option Custom text or pattern
Parameter: Text to extract `{start}%{6}`

The new LeadIdworking2 column now contains only the date information. Cleaning up this column requires reformatting the data, retyping it as a Datetime type, and then applying the dateformat function to format it to your satisfaction. These steps are left as a separate exercise.

For now, let's just rename the column:

Transformation Name Rename columns
Parameter: Option Manual rename
Parameter: Column LeadIdworking1
Parameter: New column name 'LeadIdDate'

In the first working column, you can now remove the date information using the following:

Transformation Name Replace text or pattern
Parameter: Column LeadIdworking
Parameter: Find `{start}%{6}`
Parameter: Replace with ''

You can rename this column to indicate it is a daily identifier:

Transformation Name Rename columns
Parameter: Option Manual rename
Parameter: Column LeadIdworking
Parameter: New column name 'LeadIdDaily'

Results:

LeadIdLeadIdDailyLeadIdDateLastNameFirstNameTitlePhoneRequest
LE160301001001160301JonesCharlesChief Technical Officer#INVALID#Registration
LE160301002002160301LyonsEdward#MISSING#415-012-3456Download Whitepaper
LE160301003003160301MartinMaryCEO#INVALID#Delete Account
LE160301004004160301SmithTaliaEngineer510-123-4567Free Trial

Example - Using $col placeholder

This example illustrates how you can use the following conditional calculation functions to analyze weather data:
  • AVERAGEIF - Average of a set of values by group that meet a specified condition. See AVERAGEIF Function.
  • MINIF - Minimum of a set of values by group that meet a specified condition. See MINIF Function.
  • MAXIF - Maximum of a set of values by group that meet a specified condition. See MAXIF Function.
  • VARIF - Variance of a set of values by group that meet a specified condition. See VARIF Function.
  • STDEVIF - Standard deviation of a set of values by group that meet a specified condition. See STDEVIF Function.

Source:

Here is some example weather data:

datecityraintempwind
1/23/17Valleyville0.0012.86.7
1/23/17Center Town0.319.45.3
1/23/17Magic Mountain0.000.07.3
1/24/17Valleyville0.2517.23.3
1/24/17Center Town0.541.17.6
1/24/17Magic Mountain0.325.08.8
1/25/17Valleyville0.023.36.8
1/25/17Center Town0.833.35.1
1/25/17Magic Mountain0.59-1.76.4
1/26/17Valleyville1.0815.04.2
1/26/17Center Town0.966.17.6
1/26/17Magic Mountain0.77-3.93.0
1/27/17Valleyville1.007.22.8
1/27/17Center Town1.3220.00.2
1/27/17Magic Mountain0.775.65.2
1/28/17Valleyville0.12-6.15.1
1/28/17Center Town0.145.04.9
1/28/17Magic Mountain1.501.10.4
1/29/17Valleyville0.3613.37.3
1/29/17Center Town0.756.19.0
1/29/17Magic Mountain0.603.36.0


Transformation:

The following computes average temperature for rainy days by city:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula AVERAGEIF(temp, rain > 0)
Parameter: Group rows by city
Parameter: New column name 'avgTempWRain'

The following computes maximum wind for sub-zero days by city:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula MAXIF(wind,temp < 0)
Parameter: Group rows by city
Parameter: New column name 'maxWindSubZero'

This step calculates the minimum temp when the wind is less than 5 mph by city:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula MINIF(temp,wind<5)
Parameter: Group rows by city
Parameter: New column name 'minTempWind5'

This step computes the variance in temperature for rainy days by city:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula VARIF(temp,rain >0)
Parameter: Group rows by city
Parameter: New column name 'varTempWRain'

The following computes the standard deviation in rainfall for Center Town:

Transformation Name New formula
Parameter: Formula type Single row formula
Parameter: Formula STDEVIF(rain,city=='Center Town')
Parameter: Group rows by city
Parameter: New column name 'stDevRainCT'

You can use the following transforms to format the generated output. Note the $col placeholder value for the multi-column transforms:

Transformation Name Edit column with formula
Parameter: Columns stDevRainCenterTown,maxWindSubZero
Parameter: Formula numformat($col,'##.##')

Since the following rely on data that has only one significant digit, you should format them differently:

Transformation Name Edit column with formula
Parameter: Columns varTempWRain,avgTempWRain,minTempWind5
Parameter: Formula numformat($col,'##.#')

Results:

datecityraintempwindavgTempWRainmaxWindSubZerominTempWind5varTempWRainstDevRainCT
1/23/17Valleyville0.0012.86.78.35.17.263.80.37
1/23/17Center Town0.319.45.37.3 532.60.37
1/23/17Magic Mountain0.000.07.31.66.43-3.9120.37
1/24/17Valleyville0.2517.23.38.35.17.263.80.37
1/24/17Center Town0.541.17.67.3 532.60.37
1/24/17Magic Mountain0.325.08.81.66.43-3.9120.37
1/25/17Valleyville0.023.36.88.35.17.263.80.37
1/25/17Center Town0.833.35.17.3 532.60.37
1/25/17Magic Mountain0.59-1.76.41.66.43-3.9120.37
1/26/17Valleyville1.0815.04.28.35.17.263.80.37
1/26/17Center Town0.966.17.67.3 532.60.37
1/26/17Magic Mountain0.77-3.93.01.66.43-3.9120.37
1/27/17Valleyville1.007.22.88.35.17.263.80.37
1/27/17Center Town1.3220.00.27.3 532.60.37
1/27/17Magic Mountain0.775.65.21.66.43-3.9120.37
1/28/17Valleyville0.12-6.15.18.35.17.263.80.37
1/28/17Center Town0.145.04.97.3 532.60.37
1/28/17Magic Mountain1.501.10.41.66.43-3.9120.37
1/29/17Valleyville0.3613.37.38.35.17.263.80.37
1/29/17Center Town0.756.19.07.3 532.60.37
1/29/17Magic Mountain0.603.36.01.66.43-3.9120.37

See Also for Set Transform:

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