Recipe: Populating a column with sequential call numbers

You can actually fill a column in Open Refine with sequential call numbers. All you have to do is take advantage of the fact that row.index returns an integer.

Our local accession numbers for video games are GVD<number>, so if I wanted to populate a spreadsheet with :

GVD1100
GVD1101
GVD1102
GVD1103
etc.

You'd do : "GVD" + (row.index + 1100)
or
"<prefix>" + (row.index + <starting call number>) 

Recipe and walkthrough - Joining the first two cells in a column and moving the third up

 If I had this sample spreadsheet:

And I wanted to transform it to this spreadsheet:

I can use the column array conversion, a trick with array arithmetic, and nested ifs to do so in one GREL expression. Or I can use three transforms.

Assuming that all data in the "Subject" column is three subject and only three subjects per call#, and that there are no blank lines in the column, do the following:

1. Add a blank column.
2. Put in a placeholder value in first cell.
3. Move column to the beginning. If using an older version of Open Refine, switch to record view.
4. Transform with: if(mod(rowIndex, 3) == 0, row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex] + "; " +row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex+1], value)
5. Transform subject column again: if(mod(rowIndex, 3) == 1, row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex+1], value)
6. Last transform: if(mod(rowIndex, 3) == 2, "", value)
7. If you were in record view, switch back to rows. Delete placeholder column.

OR:

1. Add a blank column.
2. Put in a placeholder value in first cell.
3. Move column to the beginning. If using an older version of Open Refine, switch to record view.
4. Transform on the subject column and use this piece of GREL:

if(mod(rowIndex, 3) == 0, row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex] + "; " +row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex+1], if(mod(rowIndex,3)== 1, row.record.cells["Subject"].value[rowIndex+1], ""))
5. If you were in record view, switch back to rows. Delete placeholder column.