topic Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once? in Discussions

Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

Deez_Data — Sun, 11 Jun 2023 11:49:31 GMT

In the GUI, I can right click > Select Matching Cells. Is it possible to then change the value of all these cells? I can right-click and select Edit but that then edits only a single cell. Is there some way to quickly change the value of a bunch of cells if they all need to be changed to the same value (either numeric or nominal)? Hoping to do this without scripting but if it's not possible, then a scripting solution is better than nothing :)

Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

Deez_Data — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 01:51:02 GMT

PS: In Excel, one can grab the corner of a cell and drag it through other cells which then quickly copies that cell value to all those other cells that are selected, which is one way to accomplish what I want. JMP doesn't have this so I'm at a loss.

Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

txnelson — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 04:52:47 GMT

If you have multiple cells selected, you can paste a value from the paste buffer into the cell, and it will be copied into all selected cells. The somewhat tricky part, is to place the value to change to into the paste buffer before selecting all of the cells to change.

Here is a simple example, and the way that I use this feature.

Using the Big Class sample data table, I will show how to change all of the column "sex" values of "F" to "Female"

The data table

The first thing is to place the word "Female" into the paste buffer, so choose one of the cells that is to be changed, and type in "Female"

Then right click on the changed cell to select it, and select "Copy" to move it into the paste buffer

Then right click on one of the remain unchanged cells and select "Select Matching Cells"

Which selects all of the unchanged cells that you want to change and select "Paste". The cells will all be changed at once

There is also a more generic Find/<Replace | Replace All> tool available.

Edit=>Search=>Find

will open the dialog box for this feature. If the element it is Finding is specific enough to select only the cells to change, then one can make quick multiple cell changes.

Using the same general selection method from above, Right click on one of the M cells for the Sex column and select "Select Matching Cells". It will select all of the M cells.

Open the Find/Replace dialog box

Edit=>Search=>Find

Fill in the Find and the Replace value, and click on the checkboxes to restrict to only the selected columns and rows,

and then click on Replace All, and all of the cell values with M will be changed

Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

Deez_Data — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 18:55:45 GMT

Ah I should've thought of these methods!

Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

BHarris — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 07:47:55 GMT

There's one other option -- select the cells you want ("select matching" is your friend here), and then select "Rows"->"Row Selection"->"Name Selection in Column", and it will give you a dialog where you type in the column header to use (overwrites or creates a new column), and the value to put in the selected rows, and the value to put in the non-selected rows.

After you do it a few times it becomes second nature.

Re: Is it possible to edit matching cells all at once?

jmv — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 13:47:47 GMT

If all of the cells are in one column, would Recode be an elegant way to do this?

Thanks!

Joe