Turn Off Automatically Renaming Duplicate Column

Question

I have a large data set and some of my column names are the same. When I input the csv, the duplicate column names are automatically renamed. I've tried to use the Select tool to remove the 2 from their name, however, it keeps automatically updating it so there are no duplicates. How can I get past this and keep the duplicate column names?

DataNath · Answer

Hey @kleedtke, unfortunately it’s impossible to maintain multiple columns with the exact same name in Alteryx. It’ll always force the numbering etc at the end. The closest thing you can do is just add differing amounts of spaces at the end of the field name in order to visually make them appear the same, though if you need to use them in formulae or other tools you’ll need to know which is which I.e. which of the duplicates has N number of spaces.

alexnajm · Answer

You can't - you cannot have two columns of the same name as this is good data quality!