Specify the row where data starts

[_sean_otto]

Currently on the input tool I can only specify if the first row contains data.  It would be great if I could simply specify which row the data starts on, ie. row 4 or row 500, and then specify which row, if at all, contains the headers.

[mbarone]

Not sure about the headers, but the Select Rows tool will let you specify what rows to bring in.  The help file is a little lacking for this tool, so you can benefit from my experience:

A single digit like "10" means bring in only row 10
A minus signe in front of a number like "-14" means bring in everything from row 1 through row 14.
A plus sign in front of a number like "+20" means bring in everythign starting at row 20 through the last row.

And you can have any combination of these at the same time if you wish.

[tom_montpool]

There's a way to do this with existing tools, not as simple as specifying start row and header row, but it works. The process isn't very complicated but it requires some configuration of tool properties away from their defaults. I've put together some shots of the process. By the way, if your file is wide, you might want to change the Field Length in the Input Tool configuration to something larger than 254.

[tom_montpool]

+1 to previous comment

[cbridges]

Critical, and too simple not be baked in.

[Fonseca]

I know it is an old post, but I think a better solution would be to use the "Select Records" tool to choose which row to start from, then use the "Dynamic Rename" tool to take field names from first row of data for all the F.

[cbridges]

@Fonsecathat is a really good option, and I wasn't even aware of that tool.

I won't bore you with all the particulars of my use case, but suffice it to say that in my case a major advantage of being able to just tell Alteryx where the headers/data begin is so it will correctly parse columns without additonal help from me.

I tried your solution, and in my case, I still have to follow it with the same parsing tools as before, all because Alteryx doesn't know where the headers are, and therefore thinks that the data is all in one column.

P.S.

Alteryx, please, please listen to our pleas! We already have workarounds...what we'd like is SIMPLICITY. :-)

[ARich]

The ability to specify which line to start data import on is coming in 10.5 for CSV and TXT files. We'd love to hear if this covers the majority of use cases or if there are other file types where this would be useful.

[cbridges]

@ARich THANK YOU!!!!

I personally think that it would be a nice feature to have for any kind of file, because the versatility of Alteryx is one of its greatest strengths. I believe this will solve my problem if it is incorporated into the "read file as" procedure. I'm reading in .prn files, but I'm asking Alteryx to treat them as .csv files.

At the very least, it might be helpful for many to be able to specify the starting row for .xls* files as well.

[bpschoon]

@alexP

I would also like to see this with .xlsx files as well.

[cpbrehmer]

Is there a current solution for .xlsx files? The .xlsx tool does not have an option to specify a delimeter like the .csv tool does.