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Understanding Columns for List Types

Array Data in Column Format

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Written by Support
Updated this week

APIs provide records in a 3D format (columns, rows and *depth*).

Tabular data environments can only present data in 2D format (columns, rows), with only a flattened version of depth. 3D becomes flattened to 2D.

Plural fields, like "Dependencies", or "Goals", or "Items" that are nested within records must be converted to numbered columns in a 2D tabular environment.

spices [ name: pepper, name: salt, name: cardamom ]


For each type of spice, we know 3 things about it: it's in a position in a spice list, it has a name, and what that name is.

spices_1_name: pepper | spices_2_name: salt | spices_3_name: cardamom


The same knowledge is retained, but simplified with column headings.

If you are opening your flat file and looking for the basic form of a plural field like "Items" or "Dependencies" and not seeing it, you should look for Dependencies_1, Dependencies_2, Dependencies_3, instead.

Alternatively, to preserve the 3D nature of your data, use Google BigQuery in Flatly, instead of spreadsheets.

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