Setting format in Load Inline

[SerSwagster]

Hi everyone,

I'm loading an empty table with the Load Inline because subsequently I have to concatenate other data in it.

I know that, by default, all columns loaded with the Inline method are in text format. Is there a way to set the column format (for each column), straight from the Load Inline statement, for an empty table?

This because, in my case, if I load an empty table, and then I concatenate all the fields setting the data format,  Qlik has problems recognizing some date columns (maybe because it still read it as text columns).

[Or · Accepted solution]

I think you might be chasing the wrong issue - my understanding is that the datatype for each column is determined at the end of the load, not when the first row is loaded. However, you could use e.g. Load Field1, Field2, Date(Field3) as Field3 INLINE [

Field1, Field2, Field3 ];

if you want to try it out. This doesn't tag the field as numeric or date, though.

[SerSwagster]

I have to do multiple loading and operations on data. But, I necessarily concatenate data a later time due to particular loading issues. So I need to do in this way:

Load * INLINE [

a, b, c...

]

Concatenate...

It is possibile to specify datatype in the INLINE statement? 

[Or]

You could try it as I suggested by explicitly loading it as date(c) as c, but I don't think this will actually help.

You could try force-tagging the field as a date, but if the values aren't actually dates, that won't help either. This would be (at any point after the field c has been loaded, doesn't matter when):

Tag c as '$date';

This is the closest thing you can do to "specifying a datatype", as far as I know.

[SerSwagster]

I'm writing my code to explain better my situation. Maybe another solution can be achieved.

A:
LOAD * INLINE [

a, b, c, d, e

];

For each vFileName in Filelist ('hello_*.xlsx')
Concatenate(A)
LOAD
*
FROM
[$(vFileName)]
(ooxml, embedded labels, table is [Sheet 1]);
Next vFileName

A2:
LOAD aaa as a,
b,
c,
date(d,'YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss') as d,
if(IsNull(e), 'yes', e) as e
Resident A;
Drop Table A;

Other operations are made on table A2 but I think this is enough to explain the situation.

Column d it's a problem for me because it is not recognized as a date. I would avoid to set the datatype in the graph, so for this reason i hoped it could be done in the starting inline statement.

[Or]

If d isn't being recognized as a date, that's likely because it contains non-date values (or it contains nothing but null values, I suppose). Other than cleaning up the values or tagging it as a date, I have no ideas that might help.

[SerSwagster]

Anyway, it seems that your first solution is working. Thanks a lot!