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Sharepoint List string to Power Automate array

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Posted on by WalesMariner

I have a list of strings stored in a sharepoint list and I am trying to pass these into Power Automate using Get Items and then store as an array. This array will then be used to build a series of subfolders so it is quite long.

The original string of text held in each row of the SharePoint list follows this format (with varying text depending on the row item:

"01 Proposal","01 Proposal/01 Original Proposal",

However when I look at the raw inputs, the format looks like this, with "\ added leading each section of the string and \ added at the end:

"\"01 Proposal\",\"01 Proposal/01 Original Proposal\",

I am then using Split on the comma to enable me to convert to an array but the characters that are being added are making the filepaths that I need to create invalid. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

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v-bofeng-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @WalesMariner ,

Could you please show me your flow?

What is the column's datatype? Is it a single line of text column?

Best Regards,

Bof

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WalesMariner 73 on at

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Hi the list column setting is - Multiple lines of text.

For the flow I tried using a compose step with a replace expression before splitting on the comma to remove the unwanted elements but that did nothing, I then tried the same compose after using the split expression on the comma, but in that sequence I got this error:

Unable to process template language expressions in action 'Compose_SubFolder_Replace' inputs at line '0' and column '0': 'The template language function 'replace' expects its first parameter 'string' to be a string. The provided value is of type 'Array'.

This is the section of the flow that I'm got the issue with:

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v-bofeng-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @WalesMariner ,

I've made a test and it worked well. Is that what you want?

Result

Best Regards,

Bof

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WalesMariner 73 on at

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Yes that's what I need how am I getting the extra characters in the raw input from the SharePoint list?

thanks

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v-bofeng-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @WalesMariner ,

What I get is that the value shown in the SP list has no extra characters. Can you provide some screenshots of the data source and run history screenshots of the flow.

Best Regards,

Bof

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Paulie78 8,422 Moderator on at

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It is quite normal for the slashes that you see to be present. The reason is because your string contains double quotes and these need to be escaped. I am assuming that you do not want the double quotes in your folder name so I would suggest you do something like this:

I used the expression:

split(replace(outputs('Compose'), '"', ''), ',')

Before the split on the comma, the double quotes are being removed entirely, which produces clean output like this:

[ "01 Proposal", "01 Proposal/01 Original Proposal" ]

Hope this helps

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