These functions perform a variety of specialized actions and can be used with all Supported Data Types.
Note
Not all functions are supported between Standard mode and Cloud Native mode tools. For a list of supported functions, go to the respective Standard mode and Could Native mode function lists found on the Formula tool page.
Coalesce(v1,v2,v3,…,vn)
: Returns the first non-null value.
Important
Values passed to the Coalesce function must all be the same type (all string or all numeric).
Coalesce(null, "oranges", "apples", null, "grapes")
returns oranges.
Coalesce(oranges, apples, grapes)
returns an error.
Coalesce("1", "2", "3")
returns 1.
Coalesce(null, null, null)
returns Null.
Coalesce(toDateTime("apples"), toDateTime(1))
returns 1899-12-31 00:00:00 because toDateTime("apples") returns null.
EscapeXMLMetacharacters(String)
: Replaces XML metacharacters with their escaped versions. There are 5 characters that are escaped.
Character | Escaped Version |
---|---|
" | " |
' | ' |
< | < |
> | > |
& | & |
EscapeXMLMetacharacters("2>1&1<2")
returns 2>1&1<2
GetVal(index, v0,...vn)
: Returns the value (v0, ..., vn) specified by the 0-based index.
Message(messageType, message, returnValue)
: Use with a conditional statement to output a message to the message log and update column data with a specified value when a condition is met.
The message type and text is shown in the Results window.
messageType
: A number that corresponds to the type of message:
1: Messages
2: Warnings
3: Errors
5: Conv Errors (field conversion errors)
8: Files (input)
9: Files (output)
message
: The text of the message, expressed as a string between quotes.
returnValue
: A value to output to column data. This can be a numeric value (for example, 0), null, or a text string between quotes (for example, "False").
In this example, the Message function is used within a conditional expression to output a field conversion error message and update column data with a value of "False" if given date-time values do not contain valid time data.
If [Hour] = "0" and [Minutes] = "0" then Message(5, "Invalid time in DateTime", "False") Else "True" Endif
Null()
: Returns a Null value.
RangeMedian(...)
: Calculates the median from a series of aggregated ranges. Go to Range Median for more information.
Soundex(String)
: Returns the Soundex of String. Soundex creates a code based on the first character in the string plus 3 characters based on these items:
Character | Soundex |
---|---|
Non-Alpha Characters (numbers and punctuation) | -1 |
a, e, i, o, u, y, h, and w | Ignored unless it's the first character in the string. |
b, f, p, and v | 1 |
c, g, j, k, q, s, x, and z | 2 |
d and t | 3 |
l | 4 |
m and n | 5 |
r | 6 |
If the resulting code is only 2 or 3 characters long, Soundex uses zeros to fill out the code to 4 characters. For example, in the name Lauren, only the L, r, and n are translated (Lrn), so the resulting Soundex code is L650.
If the resulting code is more than 4 characters long, all characters after the fourth character are ignored. For example, in the name Patrick, the P, t, r, c, and k can be translated (Ptrck), but the resulting Soundex code is only 4 characters: P362.
Soundex_Digits(String)
: Returns the first 4 digits or the Soundex if none.
If there are digits (numbers) in the String, the first 4 digits are returned.
If there are no digits, the Soundex code is returned.
Example String | Soundex_Digits |
---|---|
3825 Iris | 3825 |
55555 Main | 5555 |
14L Broadway | 14 |
Commerce Street | C562 |
L Street | L236 |
TOPNIDX(N, v0, v1, ..., vn)
: Returns the 0-based original index position of the Nth from the maximum value upon sorting the indexed fields (v0 to vn) in descending order. Null values are ignored and N should be less than non-null parameters. With N==0, it is the same as MaxIdx(...).
N
- Nth from the maximum value from the indexed fields.v0, v1, ..., vn
are the indexed fields.
TOPNIDX(1, [IndexedField1], 5, 7)
returns...
0 if 5<
[IndexedField1]
<71 if
[IndexedField1]
< 5 or[IndexedField1]
is null2 if
[IndexedField1]
> 7
UrlEncode(String)
: Encodes a UTF-16 string using a non-standard, UTF-16-based percent-encoding.
Important
Please note that this method is no longer recommended. We recommend the new UrlEncodeUTF8 function instead.
UrlEncode("C:\temp\Alteryx URL Encode")
returns C:/temp/Alteryx%20URL%20Encode.
UrlEncodeUTF8(String)
: Encodes a string using the RFC 3986-compliant* percent-encoding. The function converts characters into UTF8-based units and it skips characters defined in the unreserved character set. Unlike the above UrlEncode function, this function doesn't skip the common URL delimiters like "/", so it's not suitable for encoding full path URLs. You should use this function to encode specific URL components, like query component parameters.
Note
*RFC 3986 is the standard for URL encoding and defines a method for encoding Unicode characters by converting them into a UTF-8 byte sequence and then representing each byte with a % (percent) sign followed by two hexadecimal digits.
UrlEncodeUTF8("C:\temp\Alteryx URL Encode")
returns C%3A%5Ctemp%5CAlteryx%20URL%20Encode.