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Challenge #443: Mystery of the Unjoined Records

AYXAcademy
Alteryx
Alteryx

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Hi Community,

 

A solution to last week’s challenge can be found here. This week’s challenge was submitted by Alteryx ACE and Grand Prix champion, Claire McCollough! Thank you, Claire (@clmc9601), for this exciting challenge submission!

 

Can you solve the mystery of the unjoined records?

As part of a performance analysis, you have two datasets: one containing the Item Number and Item Cost, and another containing Item Number and Product Type. Your task is to get the Item Number, Item Cost, and Product Type all in the same table.

 

Although it looks like a simple Join tool would do the trick, for some reason, the rows do not join correctly. You need to determine the extra steps you need to take to make the join work.

 

Tips:

  • Modifying the input YXDB files or retyping the data is NOT a valid answer. Your solution should use Alteryx Designer tools and work even if you have hundreds or thousands of items.
  • All five records should join upon output. For the correct answer, none of the Item Numbers should contain leading or trailing spaces or invisible whitespace.
  • If you get stuck, feel free to open the hints provided in the Start workflow.

Source:

You can visit https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit.html to identify the Unicode IDs for the invisible whitespace characters.

 

Need a refresher? Review the following lessons in Academy to gear up:

 

Good luck!

 

Academy Team

binuacs
21 - Polaris
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alacoume
9 - Comet

My solution: 

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RolandSchubert
16 - Nebula
16 - Nebula
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443.jpg
Tofel
8 - Asteroid
Spoiler
Interesting ! Never heard of POPDF !

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mrai02
8 - Asteroid
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A bit tricky at first but the website helped in finding the invisible characters in the input file.
Awesome exercise.

MelGibson
10 - Fireball

Oh my gosh - I can't believe this through me for a loop. At first glance it should be easy. 

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Erin
10 - Fireball
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RegEx to the rescue! The site from the hint is blocked at my office so I'll always have to wonder what mysterious characters I chopped from the text....
JeffersonB
5 - Atom
 

The 'Formula' tool is used to apply the 'DecomposeUnicodeForMatch()' function, ensuring that any hidden Unicode characters, including invisible whitespaces, are normalized.

 

 

olga_strubbe
11 - Bolide

Very tricky, thank you Claire @clmc9601

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