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Showing posts from June, 2016

Reading Zip files in PowerQuery / M

Being a fan of PowerBI, I recently looked for a way to read zip files directly into the Data Model, and found this blog which showed a usable technique. Inspired by the possibilities revealed in Ken's solution, but frustrated by slow performance, I set out to learn the M language and write a faster alternative. UnzipContents The result of these efforts is an M function - UnzipContents - that you can paste into any PowerBI / PowerQuery report. It takes the contents of a ZIP file, and returns a list of files contained therein, along with their decompressed data: If you're not sure how to make this function available in your document, simply: Open up PowerQuery (either in Excel or in PowerBI) Create a new Blank Query. Open up the Advanced Editor  (found on the View tab in PowerBI). Copy-Paste the above code into the editor, then close the editor. In the properties window, rename the the function to  UnzipContents Usage Using the function is fairly straight forw