Checking if Excel has a table without using FOR EACH loop.

[matchrocket]

I am trying to check if an excel document has a table, and if it doesn't create one. If it does, don't. The problem I am having is that if I use dynamic content, it goes into for-each loop and the condition will always fail, and is VERY slow.

The Excel document I am working with has 1300 rows.... so the loop is painfully slow. So, I am trying to use expressions manually to skip the for-each. Its a singular check, and shouldn't have to go through each row looking for a table.

Get tables from excel for business (works) -- > Returns [] when no table or ['Table1'] when there is a generic table

Condition:

string(empty(body('Get_tables')?['Value'])) -- > is equal to -- > True | Always returns false.

OR

empty(body('Get_tables')?['Value']) -- > is equal to -- > True | Always returns false

OR

body('Get_tables')?['Value'] -- > is equal to -- > empty() or null | Fails, doesn't like the check

My question is, how do I use the returned value of [] from Get Tables to trigger a TRUE condition and create a table? Future more, if the excel document has a table and returns ['Table1'], don't. It will return FALSE in the condition, but seeing how when its empty it also returns false, I don't trust that its working correctly.

[jwhite]

Hi @matchrocket,

Try using a condition to check the length of the array returned by "Get tables" as below:

I set up what is hopefully a simple version of what you're trying to do, if not let me know if I misunderstood:

The expression I have used in the condition is:

length(body('Get_tables')?['value'])

which checks the length of the array. As we are just checking the array and not the contents of the array there is no need for a loop.

Let me know if this helps!

[v-alzhan-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @matchrocket ,

Have you taken a try with @matchrocket 's solution?, @matchrocket 's solution is works, please take a try with it and your poblem could be solved.

length(body('Get_tables')?['value'])

Best regards,

Alice       

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.