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Concatenate: option to specify column name match

☐ cool new feature
☑ could help many users!

☑removes something that feels like a „bug“

☐ nice to have

☐ nobody needs it

 

What inspired this wish list request? 

In general, Jmp doesn't distinguish between upper and lower case - and Jmp ignores white spaces in Symbol names.
So, :age can refer to the same column as :A G E 

But :age and  :A G E can be also different columns.

check if column exists? 

 

JSL ignores white-spacing for names, most people don't take advantage of this! 

 

Let's take the Concatenate platform as an example. This platform is very picky with column names.

If Table A has a column :age and table B has a column :A G E,the combined table will contain 2 columns!

In general this is a nice feature: better split the columns, the user can merge them later.

 

But for user who lived the carefree life of "difference don't matter" - the first collision with Concatenate can be traumatic.

 

What is the improvement you would like to see? 

In Concatenate (and other platforms?) please provide an option "Column Names: Exact match".

If the option is on, Concatenate is as picky as now, if it's off, Concatenate follows the usual rules of JMP/JSL when comparing column names.

hogi_2-1706886019431.png

 

Why is this idea important? 

- The option will give the user more possibilities.

 

- The presence of the option will generate awareness!

 

- The idea is related to the option Exact Match (1 |0) of   dt << has column(), which will be introduced with Jmp18:
data table : message column exists(colname)? 

hogi_1-1706885965701.png

 

more wishes by  hogi_2-1702196401638.png

2 Comments
hogi
Level XII

hi @Sarah-Sylvestre , I just found 2 more wishes with the same idea:
Concatenate: column matching 

Concatenating table rows with different column names 

Concatenate: option to specify column name match 

 

could you please link the wishes. In total it's now 9 Kudos.

hogi
Level XII

check if column exists? is available now as

dt << has column()

it it allows to specify if the name matches exactly.

Many, many thanks, great!

I hope, concatenate will get this flexibility as well