Regex Delimiter for Reading in/Parsing Files

[pgensler]

This might be an edge case, but it would be nice to be able to parse a file using a Regex in the Text to Columns Tool, or specifying a delimiter as a Regex:

Consider the following pandas code where one can easily pull in a file with a bad delimiter

In Alteryx, you would be forced to read in the file with no delimiter, and set the field length to be extremely long, and parse out the contents manually.

filename = "http://daniels-pull.universityofdenv.netdna-cdn.com/assets/GeneralOccurrencesAll.csv"

df = pd.read_csv(filename, sep=r',(?!\s)')

[Community_Admin]

The status of this idea has been changed to 'Inactive'. This status indicates that:

1. The idea has not had activity in the form of likes or comments in over a year.

2. The idea has not reached ten likes.

3. The idea is still in the 'New Idea' status. 

However, this doesn't mean your idea won't be implemented! The Community can still like and comment on this idea. With enough renewed interest, this idea can be brought back into the 'New Idea' status. 

Thank you for contributing to the Alteryx Community and the Alteryx Product Idea Boards!

[rhipp]

Regular expression delimiter is a great idea. Without it I'll have to avoid the use of the Input Tool for this particular notebook and pass the filepath to the Python Tool with Alteryx.read('#1')