Table of Contents
MATCH
Category: Transform / Advanced
Description
This action goes through the text values of a column in one table and finds matching values in another table (lookup table). Matched lookup values then replace original values. In the case of multiple matches, an arbitrary match is taken (in no particular order) and other matches are ignored.
Use cases
The Fuzzy mode of this action can be used for matching text values that may have typos.
Action settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Column | Select the column in the current dataset that contains the values to match in the lookup table. |
| Lookup table | Select the dataset to be use for the lookup. |
| Lookup column | This setting appears once the Lookup table has been selected. Select the column that contains the values to be matched to. |
| Match mode | Options: Contains, Starts with, Ends with, and Fuzzy. See the table below. |
| Case sensitive match | When checked, text case must match in the lookup values. |
| If not matched | Choose how unmatched values are handled. Options: Keep existing value, Make empty, or Default to (and choose whether this value is an expression, or text or a number, and enter the expression or text/number value). |
Match mode settings
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Contains | A lookup value is returned if the source value contains it. For example, "tor" would be returned if the source value was "Motorola". |
| Starts with | A lookup value is returned if the source value starts with it. For example, "Moto" would be returned if the source value was "Motorola". |
| Ends with | A lookup value is returned if the source value ends with it. For example, "rola" would be returned if the source value was "Motorola". |
| Fuzzy | A lookup value is returned if the source value is within the specified edit distance. The Damerau–Levenshtein edit distance measures the number of edit operations required to produce one word from another. |
| Max. edit distance | This setting appears when the Match mode is set to "Fuzzy". Choose the edit distance used by the Fuzzy-matching process. See the Fuzzy mode, above. |
Examples
Example: Match the source value to any of the lookup values. (Illustrates the example statements given above in the Match mode settings table)
Table 1: Source value
| Source text |
|---|
| Motorola |
Table 2: Lookup table
| Lookup values |
|---|
| tor |
| Moto |
| rola |
| Motrola |
Action parameters:
Column is "Source text" (in Table 1)
Lookup table is "Table 2"
Lookup column is "Lookup values"
Case sensitive is unchecked.
If not matched, "Make empty"
Using the two tables and parameters above, the following tables show the results of the given settings.
Contains match mode:
| Source value |
|---|
| tor |
Starts with match mode:
| Source value |
|---|
| Moto |
Ends with match mode:
| Source value |
|---|
| rola |
Fuzzy match mode (max edit distance of 1):
| Source value |
|---|
| Motrola |
Community examples
- How to look up and replace a string of text (Project; Module: Main; Group: Tab 1; Table: Table 3; Action position: 3)
- Substring Query (Project; Module: Main; Group: Tab 1; Table: Table 1; Action position: 3)
- Iterate through a set of column (Project; Module: Main; Group: Tab 1; Table: in.csv; Action position: 5)