Field Index or Position ID

[jeeva_ganesan]

Hello All,

Can you add the flexibility to access fields based on its position or index like a[1], a[2],... a[n]. a[1] being the first column. Also an option to get max[a] can give the last column and min[a] give the first column. In this way, we can easily subset the dataset. Most cases, we are handling survey data which has 1000s of columns and when we need to select certain columns, we have to manually select the column checkbox and its painful to select 100s of columns. It will be nice if there is an option to select based on ID or index. It will also be useful while doing multi-field formula with more number of fields, because currently there is no option to write formulaes based on field Name column in it. 

Regards,
Jeeva.

[msking]

If I am understanding your question, the Dynamic Select tool can handle this.  

1.  Use the pull down to "Select via a Formula"
2.  Expand the "Fields" group in the Variables tab and navigate to the last field option "FieldNumber"
3.  [FieldNumber] = 1 returns the first column

Does that work?

[cbridges]

I'd very much like the multi-field tool to offer the option of designating field position rather than field name. I was going to detail my "why", but it's pretty tedious and boring to anybody but me. Suffice it to say that until Alteryx implements the ability to designate the header and data rows in one shot, I have a lot of finessing to do in order to process reports from our archaic system. In my case, select via formula isn't accomplishing my goal (though I could be missing something).

[Shaiy10]

As stated above this is a very important required feature i.e. to access the field name with its position ID. i have a requirement to RENAME the field name based on its position and then RENAME all the other fields with a different logic

for e.g below

IF ([_FieldNumber_] = 6) THEN Replace(UpperCase([_CurrentField_]),"*","TARGET")
ELSE
Replace(UpperCase([_CurrentField_])," ","_")
ENDIF

trying to build this into the dynamic rename but gives an error

what i am doing here is rename the 6th field as TARGET

and then rename all other columns as UPPERCASE replacing the spaces with underscores.

the second part works fine but when i add the replace field number condition gives me an error