String Manipulation (Multi Column) - differing behaviour to the regular node

[pzkor]

It seems that the String Manipulation node operates on variables of other type than string, whereas the Multi Column version doesn’t. For instance, I can change a date to a string in String Manipulation node, but not for multiple columns in one go.

[ipazin]

Hello @pzkor,

this is known issue. See here:

String Manipulation (Multi Column): Does not handle date&time columns as $$CURRENTCOLUMN$$

Hi, Manipulating date&time columns is possible in the String Manipulation (Multi Column) when using the column name directly but if one uses $$CURRENTCOLUMN$$ while a date&time column is included, this error message is shown and the node cannot be configured: failed to apply settings: Invalid type identifier for variable in line 1: n

Br,
Ivan

[pzkor]

Thanks. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

[takbb]

I hope so too @pzkor! The String Manipulation (Multi Column) would be a massively more useful general purpose node if this bug (and I feel it is a bug!) were fixed.

If there is some technical reason it cannot be fixed then having the ability to filter included columns by data type would make sense, or… just like the Math Formula node does… , it shouldn’t be allowed to “see” any columns of data types that break it.

As it stands, I generally precede it with a column splitter or column filter to do the job of filtering out the columns it cannot handle, and then column-append the filtered columns afterwards.