Pull Field Labels & Descriptions from separate tiny table?

[PeterParker]

Long story short.

Have a survey with many questions - say 20.

Each question is a column - I know it can be done via rows but that's separate pros/cons.

I want the question fields to be named q1 ... q20 for lookml purposes. Static references.

But obviously a short + long description (aka Label and Description) that actually has a short + long text of what the question is, would be useful.

So let's say I have 10,000 survey responses and 20 questions.

The question ID - label - description is a very teeny tiny table.

However I'm struggling to see how I get this into LookML.

Yes, Labels and Descriptions can make use of Liquid Variables. Great.

However, let's say the tables are SurveyResponse and SurveyQuestion --- .... a "Join" wouldn't work because a join is done on row values, not actual column names ... how do I "join" -- Q1 = "What is your name?"

Now yes, this could be solved if I made each Question - Survey ID it's own row, but you lose some ease of use there for the user --- not to mention some relation data between dimensions.

I suppose there's no way to inject Labels + Descriptions from a separate dimensional table? Trying to be a bit too clever I guess.

[sam8]

> Trying to be a bit too clever I guess.

We love to see it. Looker and LookML can enable some pretty crazy stuff.

But I think you're right that this is a step beyond possible. The liquid approach seems promising, but at the end of the day, you basically have to simulate a join or lookup. Liquid doesn't go that far.

Like you said, you have to have something to connect the tiny label table to the larger questions table. A question ID row in the larger questions table would be my first suggestion, but it seems like your requirements don't allow for that.