Data formatting

The process of transforming raw data into a structured, standardized, and usable format to facilitate data analysis, data cleaning, and automation.

Key Methods & Tools

• regular-expressions (REGEX): A powerful method for pattern matching used to automate complex data-extraction and data cleaning tasks.
  • Excel REGEX Functions:
    • REGEXEXTRACT: Enables precise extraction of specific substrings based on defined patterns.
    • REGEXREPLACE: Facilitates cleaning and standardization by replacing or removing text via pattern matching.
  • Reference: 2026 04 22 Excels REGEX Functions Efficient Data Extraction Cleaning and Formatting
• Data Cleaning: The removal of errors, inconsistencies, and noise to ensure dataset integrity.
• data-extraction: The retrieval of specific, relevant information from larger, unstructured datasets.

Source Notes

• 2026-04-22: [[lab-notes/2026-04-22-Excels-REGEX-Functions-Efficient-Data-Extraction-Cleaning-and-Formatting|Excel’s REGEX Functions: Efficient Data Extraction, Cleaning, and Formatting]]