I came across the Find Replace Tool when I needed to find values from a column in one table in a column in another table. My first instance to solve the problem was to write a batch macro with a contains function in a formula followed by a not null filter (see attachment). This worked perfectly besides the fact that it was slow. Then I got excited when I discovered the Find Replace Tool accomplishes the same thing WAY faster, but I was wrong.
What I would love is the equivalent of an SQL query like this:
SELECT
A.1
B.1
FROM A
INNER JOIN
B
ON A.1 LIKE "%" || B.2 || "%"
which is a legal query in SQLite and is equal to the output of the attached macro. This is what I wish the Find Replace tool could do (Or a different tool), but it only finds one instance per "Find Within Field" value. The tools decision making doesn't line up with the decision-making that I need, for example it doesn't return the longest values found, instead the one with the first key to appear in the field. One way I've found to configure it better is to string a number of these together, that will give me a better result but still won't find every instance and uses 90 or so tools when I feel I should only need 1-3 to accomplish the same thing.
Instead of an Inner Join, the Find Replace is more like of Left Outer Join followed by a Unique() on A.1. Is there a way to accomplish this out-of-database in Alteryx?
