Find and Replace VS Join Tool

maddiecracken1

Hi all-

I am new to Alteryx and am in the process of studying for certification. Within the training video "VLookUps with Designer", the very last thing they talk about when differentiating Find and Replace functionality with Join is the find and replace returns a single match while join returns all identified matches. This is confusing to me because my understanding is that find replace can use a lookup table to replace multiple words or characters with their specified replacement, so I'm not getting why it says a single match is returned? 

Here is the link to the video i am talking about: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Interactive-Lessons/VLookUps-with-Designer/ta-p/80201#done

Go to "To join, or not to join" and you will see the instance im referencing. Thanks!

afv2688

Hello @maddiecracken1 ,

what it means is that you can only have one word non repeated on the find lookup table.

Lets say you are looking for the word 'two'

Original data:

A	one
B	two
C	three

two	X
two	Y

If there is more than one 'two' value (here is one for x and one for Y) on the find table only one will be showed.

On the join tool on the other hand you can join on multiple values but they will multiply, getting the following output:

A	one	null
B	two	X
B	two	Y
C	three	null

Hope I have explained myself well enough, sorry but english is not my native language.

Cheers