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SOLVED

Dynamic Replace Tool unmatched fields unchanged instead of null

iCFO
9 - Comet

I have built a pretty extensive data prep workflow that is currently dependent on the Dynamic Replace tool. Unfortunately I have just discovered that "Unmatched data fields are replaced with [Null] values" really means that once you replace a given value for a field name, you have to replace every single value for that field or it replaces them all with Nulls... (I am still struggling to comprehend the designed purpose of wiping out that data instead of leaving it unchanged!)

 

My workflow uses an external control module to direct the Dynamic Replace Tool to replace necessary data across hundreds of columns and thousands of rows of data. I can easily adjust the control module to work around the issue by listing out every "unchanged value" and "replacing" it back with the original value, but that is a staggering amount of replacing! I doubt that would be feasible if I needed to handle millions of rows of data.

 

Has anyone found a workaround for a large scale Dynamic Replace that leaves unmatched data fields unchanged? Is there a way for me to get into the workflow of the tool itself to try and adjust it for my needs?

 

Thanks!

10 REPLIES 10
iCFO
9 - Comet

I was able to develop an iterative macro approach that fixed the issue. Here it is for anyone interested.

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