Power BI - extract number from text string based on conditions - powerbi

Question

I have done extensive searching and I don't believe this is a repeat, but is definitely and extension of previous questions. I am attempting to extract numbers from a text string within a Power BI function. I have successfully extracted the numbers from the string into a value using the below:
Text.Combine(
List.RemoveNulls(
List.Transform(
Text.ToList([string_col]),
each if Value.Is(Value.FromText(_), type number)
then _ else null)
)
)
Using this code works great when the number I am interested in is the only number in the string, for example:
"Bring on the 1234567 comments" results in 1234567
However, I can't resolve extracting my number when multiple different numbers occur in the string, for example:
"Bring on on the 1234567 comments with 50 telling me this is a repeat" results in 123456750
What I need to do is one pull the number within the string that meets conditions (one in my case). For my particular issue, the number I need to extract will always be the only 7 digit number in the string, so I feel like this should be a more straight forward answer?
Is there a way to extract only the 7 digit number using my provided function or something similar? If I am way off base, can someone please set me on the proper path?
As always, the communities help is greatly appreciated.
Diedrich

Answer 1

First, you could use the Text.Select function to extract all numbers.
FirstStep =
Table.AddColumn(Source, "MyNumberColumn", each Text.Select([MyStringColumn], {"0".."9"}))
I found this solution on this blog post from Erik Svensen:
https://eriksvensen.wordpress.com/2018/03/06/extraction-of-number-or-text-from-a-column-with-both-text-and-number-powerquery-powerbi
For your specific requirement, maybe you need to column type the NumberColumn as text:
FirstStep =
Table.AddColumn(
Source,
"MyTempNumberColumn",
each Text.Select([MyStringColumn], {"0".."9"}),
type text)
From there, depending on the length of the result you could test presence of seven characters sequence in original string, as many times as needed until you reach the end of the new sequence made only of numbers.
SecondStep=
Table.AddColumn("My7numbers",
each if Text.Length([MyNumberColumn]) = 7
then [MyTempNumberColumn]
else if
Text.Contains([MyStringColumn],
Text.Range([MyTempNumberColumn], 0, 7))
then
Text.Range([MyTempNumberColumn], 0, 7))
else if
Text.Contains([MyStringColumn],
Text.Range([MyTempNumberColumn], 1, 7)
then
Text.Range([MyTempNumberColumn], 1, 7))
Depending on how many numbers you can get, it might worth trying to use Liste.Generate in a function that would give a list of every 7 figures sequences from [MyTempNumberColumn], whatever its length.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/list-generate