Converting long File name string into date

[shelbyswartz]

Hello! I am very new to Alteryx and have a workflow where I am bringing in multiple excel files and adding the output file name as a field. I have a Formula that takes the file path that precedes what is shown below but I would like to remove everything else and have the output as a date.

[JosephSerpis · Accepted solution]

Hi @shelbyswartz one approach would be to use regex. I've mocked up a workflow let me know what you think? As you mentioned your are new to Alteryx I would recommend the Alteryx parsing lessons.

[apathetichell]

(\d*)\.(\d*)\.(\d*)

In regex tool - set to parse.

Then use date/time tool and you can extract the information to dates.

[Luke_C]

To offer a non-regex solution, if the date will always be the first part of the filename you can just use a datetimeparse function. 

Attached is an example of both regex (mentioned above) and the parse function. I'd suggest bookmarking this link on datetime functions, it's super helpful!

[shelbyswartz]

That worked!! Thank you. I do need to learn parsing.