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Yash-3
New Participant
November 25, 2020
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Field with Multiple values

  • November 25, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 5491 views

We need to attribute multiple values to one of the fields. As far as what I know we would either use semicolon (;) or comma (,) to separate multiple values. In our scenario one of the values by itself has a comma in it and wasn't sure how to escape that comma that exists in the field value. Please advise, thanks.

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Best answer by SanfordWhiteman
I would just need to concatenate these values and assign it to a field. As you can see here the fist value has a comma in it and wasn't sure how to escape that.

It's up to you how to escape it, since you're using a format that Marketo internally knows nothing about. If you want to create a CSV row, then a comma is typically escaped by enclosing each value in double quotes.

 

As mentioned, Marketo only has special treatment of semicolon-delimited Strings. (And even there the special treatment is restricted to forms + syncing with SFDC picklists.)

1 reply

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
New Participant
November 25, 2020
In our scenario one of the values by itself has a comma in it and wasn't sure how to escape that comma that exists in the field value.

There's only one implicitly-standard delimiter within Marketo, the semicolon.  But this only applies when you have a String or Text Area field that you want to present on a form using the Checkboxes or Select Multiple input types. Otherwise, a string is just a whole string, it's not natively treated as a list of substrings.

 

So if you're not talking about the form side — and keep in mind you can transform any storage format into Checkboxes using custom JS, the Forms 2.0 library will do it for you automatically if you use a semicolon — then you can use any delimiter you want. I recommend you use something that can be guaranteed to not having a delimiter collision within your domain. In other words, define ahead of time that a valid substring value cannot contain a semicolon (this is how browser cookies work, btw).

 

If you can't enforce a collision-free delimiter, then use something established, like a JSON Array or URL-encoded query string. Don't try to create your own format and escaping rules.

    Y
    Yash-3Author
    New Participant
    November 26, 2020

    Thanks @sanfordwhiteman !

    My apologies if I was unclear. The context is a bit different here-would need to manually push multiple values to a field in Marketo.

    Scenario: 

    Value 1: ABC,EFG

    Value 2: XYZ

    I would just need to concatenate these values and assign it to a field. As you can see here the fist value has a comma in it and wasn't sure how to escape that.

    SanfordWhiteman
    SanfordWhitemanAccepted solution
    New Participant
    November 26, 2020
    I would just need to concatenate these values and assign it to a field. As you can see here the fist value has a comma in it and wasn't sure how to escape that.

    It's up to you how to escape it, since you're using a format that Marketo internally knows nothing about. If you want to create a CSV row, then a comma is typically escaped by enclosing each value in double quotes.

     

    As mentioned, Marketo only has special treatment of semicolon-delimited Strings. (And even there the special treatment is restricted to forms + syncing with SFDC picklists.)

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