Transpose variable number of rows into columns in OpenRefine - openrefine

Question

I have an xml file containing records from a library catalogue. I have imported it into OpenRefine but all the values are in one column. I want to transpose it so each field in the record has its own column. However, this is complicated by the fact that a) each field is optional so does not exist in all records and b) many fields are repeatable so can appear multiple times in each record. Here's a simplified example of what the data looks like:
| RecordID | Tag | Data |
| 1 | 040a | CaABCD |
| 1 | 245a | Go fish |
| 1 | 245a | A guide to fish |
| 1 | 246i | Fish series |
| 1 | 260a | Fishing friends |
| 2 | 040a | CaABDC |
| 2 | 245a | Happy trails |
| 2 | 246i | Hiking series |
| 2 | 260i | The happy hiker |
| 2 | 500a | Notes |
I have read the Q&A here Openrefine - Transpose rows into columns based on text but the problem with this solution is that if I concatenate all the values together I have no way to be sure what field they belong in anymore, as my data is much more complicated than the data in that question (my actual data has 25+ fields and many thousands of records).
I was able to get closer using Google Sheets and making a pivot table with a calculated field (as in PivotTable to show values, not sum of values - see the answer at the very bottom). However, I still don't know how to handle the repeating fields. In the pivot table the multiple values are there but only the first displays (double-clicking on an individual cell brings up a details table which lists all the values), so when I copy-paste the table I lose the additional values. I would like to concatenate them but I cannot see a way to do so within the pivot table.
Can you think of any other way I could do this, in OpenRefine or another tool? Thanks!

Answer 1

The classic way to fix this in OpenRefine is to use "Transpose -> Columnize by key value". But this feature is poorly documented and can cause headaches even for OpenRefine developers. In your case, repeated fields will be problematic, so here is a possible solution.
1° Go to the "tag" column, click on "Transpose -> Columnize by key value" and use the following configuration (don't forget the "Note column (optional)")
The result will look like this (my dataset is not exactly the same as yours, I modified a value to do some test)
2° In the new column "Record ID: 040 a", click on "edit column -> Move Column To Beginning".
3° If you want to merge the repeated fields, go to each column that contains them and click on "Edit Cells -> Join Multi Value cells" by choosing a separator, for example "|".
The end result will look like this.
To get rid of unnecessary columns: Click on Export -> Custom tabular export and deselect the columns whose name starts with RecordId.

Answer 2

OpenRefine also has a native MARC importer which might be something worth trying if you need to work with MARC data in the future. MARCEdit also has some specific OpenRefine support built in.