How to use - MaxString & MinString

[robert_mika]

Bullet points:

• MaxString and MinString belongs to Qlikview String Aggregation function.
• They are equivalent to MAX and MIN for integers
• They return the highest and lowest string value

What actually a value of a string?

This is the value described by ANSI character standard where 0 ( NULL) is equal  to 0 and ÿ to 255.

(For full ANSI character set please attached dosument)

Taking only the standard English alphabet (A-z)  ‘A’ will be the MIN and ‘z’ will be the MAX.

Remember:

In ANSI standard A < a and Z < z

(A=65,Z=90,a=97,z=122)

Language specific characters will be not recognized in the place where they are in your alphabet but they will be 'pushed' to the end

(see ANSI table)

MinString and MaxString works on dimensions (columns) only so you cannot use is to evaluate single character or strings .

(MaxString(‘a’,’z’…) is not supported

Examples:

1)    MIN & MAX (textbox)

Data	Expression	Results
	MinString(Category) MaxString(Category)

2) MIN and MAX of String per group (Straight table)

Data	Expression	Result
	MinString(Category) MaxString(Category)

3) With condition:

Return Max and Min string based on another column

We are looking for MIN and MAX string value from column Category where Country='Poland'

Data	Expression	Solution	Result
	MinString( if(Country='Poland', Category, null()) ) MaxString( if(Country='Poland', Category, null()) )

4) With LEFT/RIGHT

When used with LEFT the result will be the same as without as the value will be still based on first characters.

Data	Expression	Solution	Result
	=MinString( Right(Country,1)) =MaxString( Right(Country,1))

5) With MID

Data	Expression	Solution	Result
	=MinString( Mid(Country,2,2)) =MaxString( Mid(Country,2,2))

6) With Substring

When our data are little scrambled -TextBetween will return string between '.' and end of the row.

Data	Expression	Result
	=MinString(TextBetween(Country,'.','',1)) =MaxString(TextBetween(Country,'.','',1))

7) In set analysis

When Criteria of Sales is 2 return Country with highest and lowest string Value

Data	Expression	Result
	=MinString({<Sales={2}>} Country) =MaxString({<Sales={2}>} Country)

😎 With Aggr()

For each Country return lowest and highest Category string value.

Data	Expression	Result
	=Aggr(Minstring(Category),Country) =Aggr(Maxstring(Category),Country)

If know about other ways of using these functions please let me know.

[nihhalmca]

Very useful, thanks.

[luiskeyrus]

lik nihhalmca‌ very very useful!!!! ty

[amita1621]

I have a Period of format 4q 2017 and i want to go to 3q 2017 . by maxstring(period) i get 4q 2017 but how should i reach to 3q 2017