Improved Text.SplitAny – function for Power BI and Power Query

Today I’ll present an adjustment to the Text.SplitAny – function in Power BI’s query editor or Power Query. The native function takes a string as an input and splits the text by every character that is contained in the string. This seems fairly unusual to me and I haven’t used that function very often.

Problem

But what I have come across fairly often is the requirement to split a string by a bunch of different (whole) strings (instead of single characters).

Solution

Therefore I’ve modified the native Text.SplitAny – function so that it also accepts lists with strings as its second parameter:


let func =
(string as text, separator as any) =>
let
/* Debug parameters
string = "Do I need gloves for Power Query?",
separator = {"s", "need ", "Do ", "?", "g", "for "},
*/
SeparatorIsTypeList = Value.Is(separator, type list),
ListFunction = List.Accumulate(separator,
{string},
(state, current) =>
let
DoForEveryItemInTheList = List.Transform(state, each Text.Split(_, current)),
FlattenNestedList = List.Combine(DoForEveryItemInTheList),
RemoveEmpties = List.Select(FlattenNestedList, each _<>"" and _<>" ")
in
RemoveEmpties
),
TextFunction = Text.SplitAny(string, separator),
Result = if SeparatorIsTypeList then ListFunction else TextFunction
in
Result ,
documentation = [
Documentation.Name = " Text.SplitAnyNew ",
Documentation.Description = " Splits text to a list by each delimiter. Delimters can either be each character from a string or each string from a list. ",
Documentation.LongDescription = " Splits text to a list by each delimiter. Delimters can either be each character from a string or each string from a list. ",
Documentation.Category = " Text ",
Documentation.Source = " https://wp.me/p6lgsG-Yr . ",
Documentation.Version = " 1.0 ",
Documentation.Author = " Imke Feldmann: www.TheBIccountant.com: https://wp.me/p6lgsG-Yr . ",
Documentation.Examples = {[Description = " See this blogpost: https://wp.me/p6lgsG-Yr ",
Code = " TextSplitAnyNew(""Do I need gloves for Power Query?"", {""s"", ""need"", ""do"", ""?"", ""g"", ""for""}) ",
Result = " {""I"", ""love"", ""Power Query""} "]}]
in
Value.ReplaceType(func, Value.ReplaceMetadata(Value.Type(func), documentation))

view raw

Text.SplitAnyNew.pq

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How it works

This new function checks if the 2nd parameter is of type text and if so, applies the native function. But if it’s not text but a list with strings, it applies a different transformation instead, that:

  • Walks through the list of separators, using the List.Accumulate-function (row 13)
  • Splits the text by every separator in that list (row 17).
    • But as the result of a splitted text is a list, this operation has to be performed on every item of that list. Hence I’m using List.Transform for it. List.Transform also walks through every item of a list and does a transformation on it, like List.Accumulate. But it doesn’t feed it’s results of every iteration step to the subsequent step: Instead it simply stores each transformed list element on its original position and returns it there at the end. So while List.Accumulate can return a result of any format (depending on the function you perform in it), List.Transform will always return a list of the same length than the one you feed it.
  • Flatten the nested list before the next iteration (row 18).
    • When you successfully split each text-item of a list (into a list), you end up with a nested list. But this is not the ideal shape for further transformations. So I flatten the nested list into a simple list for the next iteration-round.
  • Gets rid of any empty fields that might have been created by the splitting operation above (row 19)

Hope you enjoy & stay queryious 😉

Comments (3) Write a comment

  1. Hi,

    Will the query below achieve the same result as your function or is there a situation where your function achieves a different result? I can’t seem to find a case where the outcomes aren’t the same. I’m curious because I’ve read List.Accumulate isn’t the most efficient function and should be avoided when possible.

    let
    fnTextSplitAny = (string as text, separator as any) =>
    let
    TypeListSplit =
    let
    fnSplit = Splitter.SplitTextByAnyDelimiter(separator),
    InvokeSplit = fnSplit(string),
    RemoveBlanks = List.RemoveItems(InvokeSplit, {“”, ” “})
    in
    RemoveBlanks,

    TypeTextSplit = Text.SplitAny(string, separator),

    SplitCondition =
    if Value.Is(separator, type list) = false
    then TypeTextSplit
    else TypeListSplit
    in
    SplitCondition

    in
    fnTextSplitAny

    Reply

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