How to remove extra characters from array

[odl001]

Hi experts,

I have the following flow, which gets data from a multi-selected column in Sharepoint.

I can get those data in, however the results I get have extra [ ] and " " symbold in them, although I only put , as a separator when I joined them.

I'd like the data to just show:

WHS site inspections, CSAT with TA

[v-xiaochen-msft]

Hi @odl001 ,

Please try the replace function.

replace(replace(replace(variables('var'),'[',''),']',''),'"','')

Best Regards,

Wearsky

[grantjenkins]

I'm actually a bit confused on what your flow is doing. It looks like you're getting items from your list and iterating over them, but then you're building up your comma separated list outside the loop. I initially thought you were trying to get a comma separated list of items in a single multi-select choice field for each of your items.

If that is what you are trying to do, then here's how I would do that.

For this example, I have the following list which has a multi-select choice field called Options.

The full flow is below. I'll go into each of the actions.

Get items just returns all items from my list.

I then use an Apply to each to iterate over each of the items, and for each item I extract out the values of my Options choices into a Select, then use a Join to join each value by a comma.

The expression used in the Select is:

item()?['Value']

The output from the Select would look like:

The output from the Join would look like:

[grantjenkins]

If you just wanted to take the following data:

[
  [
    "WHS site inspections",
    "CSAT with TA"
  ]
]

And end up with a comma separated list of values like:

WHS site inspections,CSAT with TA

Then you can remove your current square brackets and quotes by just passing an extra [0] to your input into your Join. As an example, I have a Compose that contains your current input. But in my case, I pass in the following which is the inner array by using the [0] - which gets the first item in your outer array.

outputs('Compose')[0]

The final result is:

[odl001]

Hi @grantjenkins , thanks. This was actually my original action however, when I use Select to map out the output from that join, I wasn't able to select the output. Also, I used the same output to create HTML. Hence, I've moved the join step out of the "apply to each".

I've also encountered an error when the array is empty or if the multi-choice field in Sharepoint is blank. Can you think of any solution?

[grantjenkins]

To check if the array is empty, you can use the following expression to see how many items it contains and then check to see if it is greater than 0.

length(YOUR_ARRAY)

To see if any choices were selected you can use the following expression and check if it's true or false.

empty(YOUR_CHOICE_FIELD)

[odl001]

Thanks @grantjenkins 

So if I'd like to pass the empty value to the HTML table, how can I do that? How cant the "join" step process this info if it is blank? Could you give me a sample flow if you don't mind?

[odl001 · Accepted solution]

I've found the simplest way to manage the choices/lookup columns from Sharepoint from @tom_riha 's reply to this post: 

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/How-to-convert-SharePoint-list-array-to-string-wh...

Thank you @tom_riha! I followed the solution from your blog and voila!

https://tomriha.com/format-multiple-choice-sharepoint-column-in-csv-using-power-automate/