How can I pivot a column base on a column with values and embedded lists?

[Anonymous]

I have a column with titles that I want to pivot, and the column with the cell info has both values and embeded lists.  I got this to work once, and now I can't repeat it.  I keep getting errors like "can't convert list to text".

Any ideas?

Titles	Values
Name	Elmer Fudd
Locations	List

[Jimmy801 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Anonymous 

this depends from whats in your List and how you would like to handle it. Here some basic examples

Transform the column content to list and expand afterwards the list to new rows

let
    Source = #table
    (
        type table [Titles=  any, Values=  any],
        {
            {"Name", "Elmer"}, {"Location", {"Street", "City"}}
        }
    ),
    Transform = Table.TransformColumns
    (
        Source,
        {
            {
                "Values",
                each if Value.Is(_,type list) then _ else {_},
                type list
            }
        }
    ),
    #"Expanded Values" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Transform, "Values")
in
    #"Expanded Values"

or you want to extract the first entry of your list like this

let
    Source = #table
    (
        type table [Titles=  any, Values=  any],
        {
            {"Name", "Elmer"}, {"Location", {"Street", "City"}}
        }
    ),
    Transform = Table.TransformColumns
    (
        Source,
        {
            {
                "Values",
                each if Value.Is(_,type list) then _{0} else _,
                type any
            }
        }
    )
in
    Transform

this to give you some ideas. If you have a more specific scenario, let me know

Copy paste this code to the advanced editor in a new blank query to see how the solution works.

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Have fun

Jimmy