Looking for some advice:

I have a field in IC that holds multiple values separated by commas that I want to reference individually to another view. For example:

In IC:


In Ref View:


I want to make the Gridview return


While this sample is short the actual data is much more characters which is why I cannot fit it inside {Comments 2} example:


Our thought is we would reference a number to each one of these tags.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Lance:

Each numeric tag matches to a specific text string?

Have you looked at the Named Item feature in GV? That would allow you to create a list that maps your tags to a text description (the tags could be letter rather than digits). You would use the function GETNAMEDITEM() to extract the text string.

GV formulas don't have a looping construct to handle a variable number of tags in a field. However look at the CHOOSE() function which will select a tag from a comma separated list.

I haven't tried this but I think it will work.

Hi Lance,

Just a comment about Bruce's "Named Item" suggestion.

These predate GridView's ability to read Excel spreadsheets and are certainly a reasonable suggestion for what you are trying to accomplish.

However, in my experience, I have replaced all my "Named Item" lists that I used historically with Excel spreadsheets that are loaded into Workspaces for reference. The Excel sheets are easier to maintain, and with the "File | New External" can be stored in a common Folder.

Hi Andrew:

I considered that but I wasn't certain how that would work in this case. Lance has a "one-to-many" situation where a single IC Item would have to locate multiple rows in the lookup file (whether it be Excel or a Named Item). Can he do that using Excel as a linked table? I'm not even certain that a Named Item can do it because I haven't tried it, but I think so.

Hi Bruce,

Actually, Lance will want to use "TABLEFIND()" to look up the values in another View. It has the looping capability that I think is necessary here.

There is a description of the function in the F1-Help text and in the Release Note where it was added in 2014.

Thanks Andrew,

I believe that is what I am looking for. I will give that a try.

Thanks