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Deleting multiple columns

Several scenarios may occur where you would need to delete unnecessary columns from your datasets, in order to remove empty columns, or delete information that is not relevant anymore.

Talend Data Preparation allows you to delete multiple columns in one single action.

Let's take the example of a dataset containing some customers data, but where the information on the age, salary or marital status is missing. This leaves you with three empty columns, that you will delete in one go, with the dedicated function, to clean your dataset.
Dataset containing customers data with missing information.

Procedure

  1. While pressing the Ctrl key, click the headers of every column you want to delete, Age, Salary_Out and MaritalStatus in this example.

    All three columns are now selected and highlighted in blue.

    Dataset containing customers data with columns highlighted.
  2. In the Functions panel, select the Delete column function.

    The function directly applies and the three columns are deleted. Three recipe steps are created, one for each column.

    It is also possible to delete an individual column by clicking the menu icon in a column header and selecting Delete Column. However, using the dedicated function is the most efficient way to delete multiple columns at the same time.

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