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NasserA
Regular Visitor

AddColumns fails when adding column to collection from ShowColumns

Using Office 365 Power Apps Version 3.20013.29

 

The code below performs the following:

 

vRequestRecords has the columns: "Title", "ItemType", "ItemName", "RequestType", "Revision", ….. and several others.

The function ShowColumns extracts 4 columns ("ItemType", "ItemName", "RequestType", "Revision") from vRequestRecords.

The function AddColumns then adds 1 column ("Title") to the result of ShowColumns.

 

Until Friday, January 31,2020, it worked without a problem.

 

Today, February 3, 2020, it shows the error messages listed.

 

It looks like a Power Apps bug introduced in a recent Office 365 update.

 

 

CODE:

 

AddColumns(ShowColumns(vRequestRecords, "ItemType", "ItemName", "RequestType", "Revision"),

  "Title", ItemType.Value & ": " & ItemName.Value & " (" & RequestType.Value & ")" & " (" & Revision & ")"

)

 

ERROR MESSAGES:

 

A column named 'Title' already exists.

The function 'AddColumns' has some invalid arguments.

21 REPLIES 21
james_hathaway
Advocate V
Advocate V

It seems this BUG has REAPPEARED.

 

I too am getting the "Column already Exists" error, for a column that most certainly DOES NOT EXIST.

 

I also agree with @NasserA

This is inexcusable - especially as it was a big that was previously reported and fixed, and yet is back!

 

Microsoft - Please fix.

 

James.

 

servoise
Regular Visitor

Same problem here. How can we solve or circumvent the problem ?

Can confirm this bug still exists
Adding a new column into a new collection with no reference to the same named column in another collection and it tells me it already exists.
In a collection with only 1 other column in it.

DeeTronSEAM
Kudo Collector
Kudo Collector

Ditto what @sxg185_sherwin said.  This bug exists.  E.g. add a new button and put the following formula in the button's OnSelect property:

 

ClearCollect(MyColl, Table({ID : 1}, {ID : 2}));
ClearCollect(MyColl, AddColumns(MyColl, "NewColumnAddedDate", Now()))

 

The following error is displayed:

A column named 'NewColumnAddedDate' already exists.

 

Discovered this with version 3.23071.17 and tested in newer versions 3.23073.21 and 3.23074.9 (latest available today) and discovered it also still appears in those versions.

😞

@DeeTronSEAM this is working as designed. The type of a collection is the union of the types of all references to that collection in the app. So if you have a button with an expression Collect(MyColl, {a:1}, {a:2}), and in another button an expression Collect(MyColl, {b:10},{b:20}), then the type of the collection records will be {a:<number>, b:<number>}.

 

In this case, there are two definitions of MyColl, one that defines it as having records of type {ID:<number>}, and another one that defines it as having records of type {ID:<number>, "NewColumnAddedDate":<datetime>} - so the final type for that collection is {ID:<number>, "NewColumnAddedDate":<datetime>}. Given that this is the type of the collection, we cannot use the AddColumns function to add a column with the same name, which is what the error is saying. Granted, this column is only added in one place, and it happens to be the same AddColumns call, so we could handle the "special case" in the code, but that would increase the complexity (and the more complex a codebase is, the more likely it will have bugs). Since this scenario can be easily solved by using a different collection (see below), we don't think this extra check is worth it.

 

ClearCollect(MyColl_temp, Table({ID:1}, {ID:2});
ClearCollect(MyColl, AddColumns(MyColl_temp, "NewColumnAddedDate", Now())

 

Hope this helps!

@CarlosFigueira ,

 

Sir, first of all, thank you so much for such a speedy and solid answer.  That helps and I agree that as long as it is by design, it's a small price to pay to keep things simple... relatively speaking.  I will take it up with the docs team as there is wording for the AddColumns and the UpdateIf functions that seemed to support the position I was calling "buggy" until you schooled me.  IMO, those docs pages could clarify the expected/by-design functionality.

 

Second, I want to tell you how good it is to see a reply from you.  Your posts and other contributions to the Power Platform have been incredibly useful to me over the past few years.  Couldn't have done it without you and honored to still be learning from you.  Thanks!

I disagree, this has started recurring as of the latest version which coincides with the resurgence of this thread. I have multiple collections with different names that are added-to by more collections, slowly building up the data I need to display to the user through a PowerApp. Eventually I need to sort my final collection, where I use the same collection name twice. When Launching the app for editing, I get the error, but cutting any reference to my collection and pasting it back in seems to fix it for me - that might work for others

 

EDIT: This doesn't fix the problem, it seems to produce the same error when testing the published app. Testing a renamed collection

EDIT 2: Renaming the collection strictly for sorting, solves the issue and now works published also. For some reason sorting a collection with the same name can sometimes trigger this bug

 

sxg185_sherwin_0-1690272002388.png

Before cutting references

 

sxg185_sherwin_1-1690272042207.png

After cut and paste

Just wondering if you have any more information on this, considering my notes above as additional information.
I also believe this is a bug and not intentional behaviour, because the error reported back is so generic. PowerApps doesn't know what the problem is, or is reporting the wrong error. It just says there's an issue with the definition but does not detail why that would be.

NasserA
Regular Visitor

Have the feeling that there are programing language limitations with Power Apps, where a variable cannot be on both the left and right side of an assignment operation.

 

For example, in an operation like Set(<target>,<source>)

 

instead of:

 

Set(I, I+1)

 

Should use:

 

Set(J,I+1)

Set(I,J)

 

That is how I would explain the issues with something like:

 

ClearCollect(ConsolidatedGalleryRows, SortByColumns(ConsolidatedGalleryRows, …..))

 

Power Apps (and most likely Power Automate) don’t seem to be designed to accept both source and target in the same statement.

 

As a precaution, in Power Apps and Power Automate, I would recommend avoiding the “source and target in the same statement” scenario.

james_hathaway
Advocate V
Advocate V

Carlos had the right answer here (of course) - The reason ShowColumns() and AddColumns() can error like this is due to the Schema for the collection needing to be static - so you can also NOT drop a column, and then add a column of the same name...

 

As for the "Variable cannot be on both the left and right side of an assignment is not quite correct.

I regularly use a formula such as:

 

Set(b_Flag , !b_Flag)

And it works just fine...

 

James.

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