Calculated column with link - remove space / whitespace / slash

Question

=IF(Title<>"";"<a href='/test/"&SUBSTITUTE([Title]," ","")&SUBSTITUTE([Title],"/","")>Info</a>";"#")

I'm trying to create a link based on two coloums. Is there a way to remove " " and "/" in title? All I get is syntax error!

I'm trying to do this without having to clone "title" column just to remove the space and slash.

Answer 1

A lot is wrong in your code.

SUBSTITUTE does not exist for Calculated Columns

Besides that, you are mixing separators, using ; in your if statement (international notation) and , in your substitute

You CAN however have a Calculated Column outputted as HTML

PROVIDED YOU SET THE DATATYPE TO NUMBER

Then it is a matter of doing the replacement after the user clicks (so you can use Javascript) instead of doing it up front

="<a href='#' onclick=""alert('"
 &Title
 &"'.replace(/ /gi,'').replace(/\//gi,''))"">"
 &Info
 &"</a>"

Notes

• Besides the references to (exsiting columns!!!) Title and Info it is all one string; so no worries with using ; or , parameters on international systems
• SharePoint strings start or end with ", so an escaped quote "" is needed to open de onclick definition and NOT close the SharePoint string. Using a single quote here would make the single quote unavailable in the JS code
• The Title is wrapped in single quotes so the JScode treats it as a String; otherwise Javascript would look for a variable or function named in this rows Title field.
• The RegEx replace can be done much smarter but would be unreadable if you're not familiar with RegExs, so I left the 2 calls

replace the

alert( X )

with

document.location = X

to make it work like a link

and off you go

Wrapping an IF around it:

=IF(ISBLANK(TITLE),"","<a href='#' onclick=""alert('"
  &Title
  &"'.replace(/ /g,'').replace(/\//g,''))"">"
  &Info
  &"</a>")

Notes

• the IF formula parameter separator here is a , (comma) test to see if you need a ; (semi-colon) on your local system But only the ones in the ,"", SharePoint part!! The other commas are inside a string and Javascript interpreted
• I left the i (ignore case off the Regular Expressions search) not needed for space and /

Be Aware this is using the undocumented behaviour of setting a Calculated Column to datatype Number; if Microsoft changes this it might not work any more and you would have do to it the CSR/JSlink way. But .. this method is less stressfull on both Server and Client; major difference being this code is downloaded for every ListRow whereas CSR code is downloaded once then called from every row. With just a few characters like in this link example, this approach is faster than CSR

Answer 2

In your code, there is a " missing before >Info. But anyway, calculated column don't allow HTML, because such thing would introduce security risk.

So I would recommend trying CSR instead.

In short, you'll have to create a small JavaScript file, upload it to portal, and attach it to your list via e.g. JSLink (Edit page -> Edit webpart -> Miscellaneous -> JSLink).

The code in the js file should be something like this:

SPClientTemplates.TemplateManager.RegisterTemplateOverrides({
  Templates: {
        Fields: {
           'LinkTitle': {'View':function(ctx) {
                  var title = ctx.CurrentItem.Title.replace(" ","").replace("/","");
                  var url = String.format('{0}&ID={1}', ctx.displayFormUrl, ctx.CurrentItem.ID);
                  return String.format('<a class="ms-listlink ms-draggable" href="{0}" onclick="EditLink2(this,{1});return false;" onFocus="onLink(this)">{2}</a>', url, ctx.ctxId, title);
           }}
       }
  }
});

Detailed article about CSR, very good for beginners, can be found on CodeProject:

• Client Side Rendering: List Views