Group variables using tags

Tags are a powerful way of organizing your variables, ane especially useful on datasets with lots of related variables.

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Adding tags

There are two main ways we can add tags to a variable: using the Variable Manager or using a Step in the Recipe.

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Using the Variable Manager

Here’s an example where we create the “host” tag in one variable, and then select multiple variables to apply the tag to all of them in one step.

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As a Step in the Recipe

The step configure_tagged_columns will allow you to tag every column passed with a tag of your choice.

configure_tagged_columns(ds.columna, ds.columnb, { "tag": "very important" })

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Using the tagged columns in the recipe

Sometimes it’s useful to process all the columns belonging to a tag using a step.

You can copy all variable names belonging to a particular tag by selecting the tag itself and then clicking the button in the upper right corner of the pop-up.

In this particular case, this is what gets sent to the clipboard:

"host_id", "host_url", "host_name", "host_since", "host_location", "host_about"

Since steps that work with groups of variables usually need them listed like this, you can simply paste this into your step’s options and quickly get going.