First and Second non-nulls

[Anonymous]

I currently have 5 free-text fields in my source data and I want to reduce these down to two fields. The idea being Name1 contains the first non-null value, and Name2 contains the second non-null.

Using nested if statements, I can get Name1 populated, but I am becoming stumped over Name2.

RowId	Field1	Field2	Field3	Field4	Field5
1	Text1	Text2	null	null	Text5
2	null	Text2	Text3	null	null
3	Text1	null	null	null	Text5

So in the example above, I would expect the following results:

RowId	Name1	Name2
1	Text1	Text2
2	Text2	Text3
3	Text1	Text5

Has anyone got any ideas how to code this in the script?

Thanks

[#2]

Can u explain how you build the second table?

[Anonymous]

The second table would be a left join of fields Name1 and Name2 back to the first table, with Fields1-5 then being dropped.

[#4]

Check if this is what you want:

http://community.qlik.com/thread/9351

TMF

[Anonymous]

Thanks, it didn't quite do what I was after, but it did sow a seed of an idea which has worked for me. Although I'm not sure how efficient it is.

Load the data:

Key	Field1	Field2	Field3	Field4	Field5
Claim1	Text1	Text2	null	null	Text5
Claim2	null	Text2	Text3	null	null
Claim3	Text1	null	null	null	Text5

Create a temporary table with all non-null values in a single field and use the RowNo() function:

Key	TempName	RowID
Claim1	Text1	1
Claim1	Text2	2
Claim1	Text5	3
Claim2	Text2	4
Claim2	Text3	5
Claim3	Text1	6
Claim3	Text5	7

Create a minimum RowID per Key as Name1ID:

Key	TempName	RowID	Name1ID
Claim1	Text1	1	1
Claim1	Text2	2	1
Claim1	Text5	3	1
Claim2	Text2	4	4
Claim2	Text3	5	4
Claim3	Text1	6	6
Claim3	Text5	7	6

Create a minimum RowID per Key, where RowID<>Name1ID as Name2ID:

Key	TempName	RowID	Name1ID	Name2ID
Claim1	Text1	1	1	2
Claim1	Text2	2	1	2
Claim1	Text5	3	1	2
Claim2	Text2	4	4	5
Claim2	Text3	5	4	5
Claim3	Text1	6	6	7
Claim3	Text5	7	6	7

Left join temporary table back to Data where RowID=Name1ID and again for RowID-Name2ID

RowId	Field1	Field2	Field3	Field4	Field5	Name1	Name2
1	Text1	Text2	null	null	Text5	Text1	Text2
2	null	Text2	Text3	null	null	Text2	Text3
3	Text1	null	null	null	Text5	Text1	Text5

Drop the temporary table and Fields1-5:

Key	Name1	Name2
Claim1	Text1	Text2
Claim2	Text2	Text3
Claim3	Text1	Text5

Phew! As I say, it works, but it's a little messy.

[flipside · Accepted solution]

Hi Shoebox,

Try this ...

Data:

Load RowId, Subfield(NameList,';',1) as Name1, Subfield(NameList,';',2) as Name2;

LOAD RowId,

     If(IsNull(Field1),'',Field1 & ';') &

     If(IsNull(Field2),'',Field2 & ';') &

     If(IsNull(Field3),'',Field3 & ';') &

     If(IsNull(Field4),'',Field4 & ';') &

     If(IsNull(Field5),'',Field5 & ';')  as NameList

FROM

[Data.xls]

(biff, embedded labels, table is Sheet1$);

flipside

[Anonymous]

Excellent. Thank you. That's much tidier.