Unify date formats
DataPrep allows you to modify the format of the date values in a column to be in a uniform manner using the unify date format transform.
To change the format of date values
1. Right-click the column with date values and select the Unify date format option from the context menu.
2. The dates in the selected column will be visible under Dates in column and each format is mentioned under Identify date patterns.
3. You can select which patterns are to be modified by selecting the corresponding check boxes.
4. Click to select the different date components such as the date, month and year tiles to construct your output date format.
5. You can choose 24-Hour format by selecting the hour-format icon which would appear at the right end when you hover your mouse over the text box.
6. You can click on the grip portion of the tile (grip icon that appears on hovering your mouse over) and move around the tiles to rearrange them.
7. A live preview of your date column is shown as you build your output date format.
The output date format and the identified date formats are invalid, if one or more of the following conditions are not met:
- You have to choose at least one tile from the Day, Month, and Year tiles.
- You can use the characters, 'Z' and 'T' only once in a date-time format.
- The tiles that follow the character, 'T' must be related to time such as Hours, Mins, Sec.
- A date-time format must contain an Hours tile.
- In a date-time format, you can use either the character, 'Z ' or any one of the T.zone tiles.
- You can choose only one format from the Day, Month, Year, Hours, Mins, and Sec tiles.
8. Click Apply to apply the transform.
DataPrep allows only the following delimiters while constructing a date or a date-time format.
|
List of delimiters
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/ : - , . \s T Z
|
Note: \s denotes a single whitespace. Please provide an actual space when you provide the input.
To apply filters
If you want to apply some filters along with this transform, you can use the filters functionality.
1. Click the Filters tab.
2. Click the 
icon and add the required columns in the Filters section. You can also reorder the filters using the drag and drop method.
3. For every column added, you can select one of the following options from the drop-down:
- Actual: This option lets you filter rows based on the actual values in the column. Click here to know more.
- Data quality: This option lets you filter rows based on the quality of data in the column. Click here to know more.
- Patterns: This option helps you filter rows based on the data patterns in the selected column. Click here to know more.
- Seasonal: This option helps you filter rows based on the seasonal parameters such as quarter, month, week, etc. Click here to know more.
- Outliers: This option allows you to filter rows based on the outliers present in the data of the selected column. Click here to know more.
Note: The filter options are displayed based on the datatype of the column added for the filter.
4. When you add more than one filter to the Filters section, the logical operators, AND or OR appear next to the filters. You can click to toggle the logical operator between AND and OR.
- Using the logical operators, you can combine the conditions and apply logic to determine the rule of precedence. The final expression is displayed in the Criteria expression box. You can click Edit to alter the default expression using logical operators and parenthesis to specify the precedence or the sequential order as to which condition should be evaluated first. Click Save after making the required changes.
- For example, In the expression, ((1 OR 2) AND (3 OR 4)), at first the condition ( 1 OR 2 ) will be executed and the condition ( 3 OR 4 ) will be executed next. Thirdly, since, the AND operator is used, the filter will be applied when both the conditions are true.
5. You can further drill down to choose specific values based on the filter option selected for each filter, in the next section.
For example, in the above screenshot, the Data quality option is selected for the All columns filter in the Filters section. Based on the selection, further options to filter specific values are displayed in the All columns (Data quality) section.
6. You can choose to include or exclude the selected items in the last section.
7. If you want to remove all the filters for some reason, you can use the Clear button.
8. A live preview of the filter transform is shown as you make changes.
9. Click the Apply button to apply the transform along with the filters.
To sort data
Under the Sort tab, you can sort data in the ascending or descending order based on any column. You can choose the column in the Sort by column drop down and choose the order to be sorted.
You can use this functionality only with the transform and not as a standalone function. However, you can use the Sort transform if you want only to sort data.
SEE ALSO
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