Write an array column (via Lookup) to Google sheet

[Jeff_Hager]

I have a similar use case but not necessarily for writing back to the sheet.

I have lessons and for each lesson I have a formula to build a single <tr> row tag for an html table (yeah yeah, I know…html…). In another sheet that is dynamically built from a query, I use a query in one of the columns to go to the lesson table and take all of those preformatted lesson html tr rows and join multiple together while wrapping it in <table> tags. This final html table is what I display in the app. This could easily be done with dynamic markdown tables as well, but right now markdown isn’t functional enough for me. If I could do something with a type of lookup column to pull back multiple rows of column data concatenated as a single string, then wrap it with a template column, then I could accomplish the same thing entirely within Glide without the need of a query in the sheet. This would remove one of the two columns left in my sheet that slows it down considerably (currently use a completely separate helper spreadsheet…not a sheet tab…entire spreadsheet to handle the background calculations of the two heavy columns. Using ImportRange to move data back and forth between the two sheets.).

Maybe a new column type could be considered that functions like a lookup, but concatenates to a single string and where you could specify a delimiter, much like the number column let’s you specify units. I could see character limits being hit pretty quickly, so maybe some limits or a disclaimer would be needed?

I know there have been several questions regarding multi select or attendance type apps that could have a dynamic list of participants, but save the results in a single row. I don’t know what the best method is to achieve this, but I’ve outlined some of my thoughts here:

Lookups from multiple realations

@gvalero like @ThinhDinh mentioned in your other thread, there are probably several ways to approach that as far as how it should be treated. Do you save it as a comma delimited list (or some other type of delimiter)? Do you save it in an array of columns? Do you save it as a value per row? I have my own uses for what you are asking for as well, but at the same time as a programmer myself, I know that arrays are a completely different monster compared to single strings. I would hope that Gl…

I also know it comes up a lot with ordering apps where a user may want to customize a food item with different toppings or allergy requests. Stripe doesn’t allow glide only columns, so I suppose people try to create an order record to use for that particular food order. Having to relate that order back to the food item, them back to a list of specific toppings or requests for that food item can get overly complicated when all that’s needed is a single column value that was built from a concatenated list. I don’t, just throwing in my two cents.