Table of Contents

TABLE METADATA

Category: Transform / Advanced


Description

This action obtains various metadata of the current dataset.


Use cases

Obtaining column names can be helpful in many cases:

Together with Rename columns with lookup and Select by lookup actions it allows dealing with datasets which column names are not fixed or not known in advance.

Table metadata can be used to obtain the total number of rows or a list of column names in a table.

For data that appears numeric in nature (zip codes, phone numbers, ID numbers, etc.), this action can identify whether the data is being captured as numeric or text.

This action can help determine if numeric data in a given column is falling within an expected range (min and max values).


Action settings

Table metadata

Metadata itemDescription
Table name The name of the dataset.
Total number of columnsThe number of columns in the dataset.
Total number of rowsThe number of rows in the dataset.


Column metadata

Metadata itemDescription
Column names The names of all of the columns in the dataset.
Distinct count The count of distinct values in the column.
All unique Whether all values in the column are unique. Returns TRUE or FALSE.
Empty count The count of empty cells in the columns.
Error count The count of errors appearing in the column.
Text count The number of text-based values in the column.
Number count The number of numeric values in the column.
Integer count The number of integers in the column. (Numeric columns only.)
Non-integer count The number of floating-point numeric values in the column. (Numeric columns only.)
Min number The smallest numeric value in the column. (Numeric columns only.)
Max number The largest numeric value in the column. (Numeric columns only.)
Min text length The length in characters of the shortest text value in the column. (Text columns only.)
Max text length The length in characters of the longest text value in the column. (Text columns only.)
Original name If the column has been renamed, what the original name was.
Number format The defined format of the numeric data in the column. (Numeric columns only.)
Annotation Annotations for the column.


Remarks

When selecting column-based metadata items, it is helpful to ensure the "Column names" items has been selected to confirm what column the metadata results area associated with.

The metadata generated by this action is based on the structure of the dataset at the point this action is inserted in the action chain. If the raw file's structure has been changed (columns removed or renamed, rows trimmed, etc.) those are the values that will appear.

The "Original name" column item will display the original starting name of the column, regardless of how many times it may have been renamed throughout the workflow. (e.g., it does not show the last name it may have had)


See also