Macro not Looping thru Files in Folder

Hello,

I am creating a macro that consolidates files with different columns from a certain folder. The input files also has headers and footers that needs to be removed before consolidation.

The problem is that my macro does not loop through the different files in the directory. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I have set the macro to type = "Iterative Macro". Are there other switches that tell Alteryx to loop through the different input files?

I'm attaching my workflow with sample data in case anyone is interested.

Thank you!

DA

Consolidate MPFs.yxzp

Workflow

Iterative Macro

Accepted answers

Qiu

@data4actuaries
Typically a Batch macro should have a Control parameter, which is not seen in your macro.
I modified the workf and Macro as attached assuming your data is having same schema.

Consolidate MPFs-r1.yxzp

All comments

Qiu

@data4actuaries
Typically a Batch macro should have a Control parameter, which is not seen in your macro.
I modified the workf and Macro as attached assuming your data is having same schema.

Consolidate MPFs-r1.yxzp

Gaurav_Dhama_

Two important points to note here.

Iterative macro is not working because an Iterative macro requires two outputs, one that is the desired output (D) and one that is not (X), this undesired output (X) is what feeds back to the Macro and it iterates over it until there are no output from X. Which is not happening in the attached macro.
You don't need an Iterative macro that again contains batch macro. Batch macro will just work fine for your requirement. As Qiu has done, you would just need to use a batch macro. And the parent flow can be a standard workflow or a standard macro. Unless you are iterating over different directories, in which case you will have to configure it as mentioned in point 1.

data4actuaries

Hi Qiu,

Apologies that it took me a while to respond. I've run your macro in my full data and tried to debug but I can't seem to understand how to fix it.

You mentioned that the macro you sent should have the "same schema". That means same number of columns, correct?

My initial problem was that I was trying to consolidate flat files (located in a directory) that do not necessarily have the same number of columns.

Can you please help point me where the macro went wrong? I've included two flat files with different number of columns.

Consolidate MPFs-r1 (1).zip

ChrisTX

Check out this blog post:

It includes a batch macro for "what happens if your field schema is different from one file to another?"

The Ultimate Input Data Flowchart
Community > Designer > Designer Knowledge > The Ultimate Input Data Flowchart
https://knowledge.alteryx.com/index/s/article/The-Ultimate-Input-Data-Flowchart-1583459854309

Chris

data4actuaries

Hi All,

Apologies for replying to you guys late. I tried to figure this out on my own. I've made small changes on Qiu's solution and now it works.

Appreciate your efforts guys!

AncientPandaman

in your original copy, the action tool is select the wrong part. It should select the Filepath as screenshot showed. so that the input filepath will replace the highlighted config.

EDIT:

change the field length as well. It missing last two header. change it to as high as possible.

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