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Splits the specified column into separate columns of data based on the delimiters in the transform. Delimiters can be specified in a number of literal or pattern-based methods. Whitespace delimiters are supported.

This transform might be automatically applied as one of the first steps of your recipe. See Initial Parsing Steps.

When the split transform is applied, the source column is dropped.

Before applying this transform, you can create a copy of the source column using the derive transform. See Derive Transform.
To retain the source column, you can use the extract transform and pattern-based matching. See Extract Transform.

split col: MyValues on: ',' limit: 3

Output: Splits the source MyValues column into four separate columns. Values in the columns are determined based on the comma (,) delimiter. If a row only has two commas in it, then the final generated column is null.

split col:column_ref [quote:'quoted_string'] [ignoreCase:true|false] [limit:int_num] [after:start_point | from: start_point] [before:end_point | to:end_point] [on:'exact_match'] [at:(start_index,end_index)] [delimiters:'string1','string2', 'string3'] [positions: int1,int2,int3] [every:int_num]

The split transform supports the following general methods for specifying the delimiters by which to split the column. Depending on your use of the transform, different sets of parameters apply.

Delimiter Methods Description Operative Parameters

single-pattern delimiters

Column is split based on one of the following:

1) patterns used to describe the beginning and ending of the field delimiter(s),

2) single delimiter, which may be repeated,

3) index values of the start and end points of the delimiter

quote

At least one of the following parameters must be specified:

after , at , from , before , on , to

multi-pattern delimiters

Column is split based one of the following literal methods:

1) explicit sequence of delimiters,

2) explicit list of character index positions

3) every N characters

Prior to Release 3.2, this method was managed using multisplit , which was a separate transform.

At least one of the following parameters must be specified:

delimiters, positions , every

Shared parameters:

The following parameters are shared between the operating modes:

Token	Required?	Data Type	Description
split	Y	transform	Name of the transform
col	Y	string	Source column name
ignoreCase	N	boolean	If `true`, matching is case-insensitive.
limit	N	integer (positive)	Specifies the maximum of columns to split from the source column

Single-pattern delimiter parameters:

Tip: For this method of matching, at least one of the following parameters must be used: at, before, from, on, or to.

Token	Required?	Data Type	Description
after	N	string	String literal or pattern that precedes the pattern to match
at	N	Array	Two-integer array identifying the character indexes of start and end characters to match
before	N	string	String literal or pattern that appears after the pattern to match
from	N	string	String literal or pattern that identifies the start of the pattern to match
on	N	string	String literal or pattern that identifies the pattern to match.
to	N	string	String literal or pattern that identifies the end of the pattern to match
quote	N	string	Specifies a quoted object that is omitted from pattern matching

Multi-pattern delimiter parameters:

Tip: Use one of the following parameters for this method of matching. Do not use combinations of them.

Token	Required?	Data Type	Description
delimiters	N	array	Array of strings that list the explicit field delimiters in the order to apply them to the column.
positions	N	array	Array of integers that identify the zero-based character index values where to split the column.
every	N	integer	String literal or pattern that appears after the pattern to match

col

Identifies the column to which to apply the transform. You can specify only one column.

split col: MyCol on: 'MyString'

Output: Splits the MyCol column into two separate columns whose values are to the left and right of the MyString value in each cell.

If a delimiter value is not detected, the cell value appears in the first of the new columns.
When the limit parameter is not specified, the default value of 1 is applied.

Required?	Data Type
Yes	String (column name)

ignoreCase

split col: MyCol on: 'My String' ignoreCase: true

Output: Splits the MyCol column on case-insensitive versions of the on parameter value, if they appear in cell values: My String, my string, My string, etc.

Required?	Data Type
No	Boolean

limit

split col: MyCol on: 'z' limit: 3

Output: Splits the MyCol column on each instance of the letter z, generating 4 new columns. If there are fewer than 3 instances of z in a cell, the corresponding columns after the split are blank.

NOTE: Avoid creating datasets that are wider than 1000 columns. Performance can degrade significantly on even a much more narrow dataset. You should limit yourself to under 500 columns in your dataset.

Required?	Data Type
No	Integer (positive)

Defines the number of columns that can be created by the split transform.
If not specified, exactly one column is created. See Pattern Clause Position Matching.

after

If this parameter is the only pattern describer:

The column is split into two. The first column contains the part of the source column before the after matching value. The second column is blank.

If the value appears more than once, no additional splitting is made, since there is no other pattern parameter.

NOTE: For after, before, from, and to, matching occurs only one time at most. Additional instances of the parameter's value in the cell do not cause another column split. For more predictable results, you should specify another pattern parameter.

If the after value does not appear in the column, the original column value is written to the first split column.
This parameter is typically used with another to describe a field delimiting pattern. See below.

split col: MyCol after: '\' before:'|'

Output: Splits values in MyCol based on value between the two characters. The first column contains the part of the MyCol that appears before the backslash (\), and the second column contains the part of MyCol that appears after the pipe character (|). The content between the delimiting characters is dropped.

Required?	Data Type
No	String or pattern

The after and from parameters are very similar. from includes the matching value as part of the delimiter string.
after can be used with either to or before. See Pattern Clause Position Matching.

at

split col: MyCol at: 2,6

Output: Splits the MyCol column on the value that begins at the second character in the column and extends to the sixth character of the column. Contents before the value are in the first column, and contents after the value are in the second column.

Required?	Data Type
No	Array of two Integers ( `X,Y` )

The at parameter cannot be combined with any of the following: on, after, before, from, to, and quote. See Pattern Clause Position Matching.

before

If this parameter is the only pattern describer:

The column is split into two. The first column is blank. The second column contains the part of the source column after the before matching value.

If the value appears more than once, no additional splitting is made, since there is no other pattern parameter.

NOTE: For after, before, from, and to, matching occurs only one time at most. Additional instances of the parameter's value in the cell do not cause another column split. For more predictable results, you should specify another pattern parameter.

If the before value does not appear in the column, the original column value is written to the first split column.
This parameter is typically used with another to describe a field delimiting pattern. See below.

split col: MyCol before: '/' from:'Go:'

Output: Splits contents of MyCol into two columns. The first column contains the values that appear before the Go: string, and the second column contains the values after the backslash.

Required?	Data Type
No	String or pattern

The before and to parameters are very similar. to includes the matching value as part of the delimiter string.
before can be used with either from or after. See Pattern Clause Position Matching .

from

If this parameter is the only pattern describer:

The column is split into two. The first column contains the part of the source column before the from matching value. The second column is blank.

If the value appears more than once, no additional splitting is made, since there is no other pattern parameter.

NOTE: For after, before, from, and to, matching occurs only one time at most. Additional instances of the parameter's value in the cell do not cause another column split. For more predictable results, you should specify another pattern parameter.

If the from value does not appear in the column, the output value is original column value.
This parameter is typically used with another to describe a field delimiting pattern. See below.

split col: MyCol from: 'go:' to:'stop:'

Output: Splits contents of MyCol from go:, including go: to stop:, including stop:. Contents before the string appear in the first column, contents after the string appear in the second one.

Required?	Data Type
No	String or pattern

The after and from parameters are very similar. from includes the matching value as part of the delimiter string.
from can be used with either to or before. See Pattern Clause Position Matching .

on

If the value does not appear in the source column, the original value is written to the first column of the split columns.

split col: MyCol on: `###ERROR`

Output: Column into two columns. The first column contains values in the column appearing before ###ERROR, and the second column contains the values appearing after this string.

Tip: You can insert the Unicode equivalent character for this parameter value using a regular expression of the form /\uHHHH/. For example, /\u0013/ represents Unicode character 0013 (carriage return). For more information, see Supported Special Regular Expression Characters.

Required?	Data Type
No	String or pattern

to

If this parameter is the only pattern describer:

The column is split into two. The first column is blank. The second column contains the part of the source column after the to matching value.

If the value appears more than once, no additional splitting is made, since there is no other pattern parameter.

NOTE: For after, before, from, and to, matching occurs only one time at most. Additional instances of the parameter's value in the cell do not cause another column split. For more predictable results, you should specify another pattern parameter.

If the to value does not appear in the column, the original column value is written to the first split column.
This parameter is typically used with another to describe a field delimiting pattern. See below.

split col:MyCol from:'note:' to: ` `

Output: Splits MyCol column all contents that appear before note: in the first column and all contents that appear after the first space after note: in the second column.

Required?	Data Type
No	String or pattern

The before and to parameters are very similar. to includes the matching value as part of the delimiter string.
to can be used with either from or after. See Pattern Clause Position Matching.

quote

split col: MyLog on: `|` limit:10 quote: '"'

Output: Splits the MyLog column, on the pipe character (|), while ignoring any pipe characters that are found between double-quote characters in the column. Based on the value in the limit parameter, the transform is limited to creating a maximum of 10 splits.

Required?	Data Type
No	String

Parameter value is the quoted object.
The quote value can appear anywhere in the column value. It is not limited by the constraints of any other parameters.

delimiters

The delimiters parameter specifies a comma-separated list of string literals or patterns to identify the delimiters to use to split the data. Values can be string literals, regular expressions, or .

The sequence of values defines the order in which the delimiters are applied.
Values do not need to be the same.

split col:myCol delimiters:'|',' ','|'

Output: Splits the myCol column into four separate columns, as indicated by the sequence of delimiters.

NOTE: Do not use the limit or quote parameters with the delimiters parameter.

Required?	Data Type
No	Array of Strings (literal, regular expression, )

positions

The positions parameter specifies a comma-separated list of integers that identify zero-based character index values at which to split the column. Values must be Integers.

split col:myCol positions:20,55,80

Output: Splits the myCol column into four separate columns, where:

column1 = characters 0-20 from the source column,
column2 = characters 21-55
column3 = characters 56-80
column4 = characters 80 to the end of the cell value

NOTE: Do not use the limit or quote parameters with the positions parameter.

Required?	Data Type
No	Array of Integers (literal, regular expression, )

every

The every parameter can be used to specify fixed-width splitting of the source column. This Integer value defines the number of characters in each column of the split output.

If needed, you can use the every parameter with the limit parameter to define the maximum number of output columns:

split col:myCol every:20 limit:5

Output: Splits the myCol column every 20 characters, with a limit of five splits. The sixth column contains all characters after the 100th character in the cell value.

Required?	Data Type
No	Integer

Pattern Groups

When you build or edit a split transform step in the Transform Builder, you can select one of the following pattern groups to apply to your transform. A pattern group is a set of related patterns that define a method of matching in a cell's data. Some pattern groups apply to multiple transforms, and some apply to the split transform only. For more information, see Transform Builder.

Example - Split with single pattern delimiters

Source:

ColA	ColB	ColC
This my String That	abXcdXefXgh	01AA001
my string This That	ijXklXmnXop	02BB002
This That My String	qrXstXuvXwy	03CC003

Transform:

ColA: You can use the following transform to split on the variations of My String: In this case, the ignoreCase parameter ensures that all variations on capitalization are matched:

split col:ColA on:'My String' ignoreCase:true

ColB: For this column, the letter x is the split marker, and the data is consistently formatted with three instances per row:

split col:ColB on:'X' limit:3

ColC: In this column, the double-letter marker varies between the rows. However, it is consistently in the same location in each row:

split col:ColC at:2,4

Results:

When the above transforms are added, the source columns are dropped, leaving the following columns:

ColA1	ColA2	ColB1	ColB2	ColB3	ColB4	ColC1	ColC2
This	That	ab	cd	ef	gh	01	001
	This That	ij	kl	mn	op	02	002
This That		qr	st	uv	wy	03	003

col

ignoreCase

limit

after

at

before

from

on

to

quote

delimiters

positions

every

Pattern Groups

Example - Split with single pattern delimiters

Example - Split with quoted values

Example - Splitting with different delimiter types