---
title: Split and unfold
description: Splits delimited string values in a column and unfolds them into separate binary columns representing the presence of each unique value.
category: Data Transforms
tags: [split, unfold, binary, reshape, explode]
---

# Split and unfold

## Description

The **Split and Unfold** activity transforms a single text column containing delimited values into multiple binary (1/0) columns. Each unique value from the original column becomes a separate column, where:

- **1** indicates that the value was present in the original field for that row.
- **0** indicates absence.

This is useful when you have multi-tag fields (e.g., "red, blue, green") and need to perform one-hot encoding or binary expansion.

If the separator is left empty, each character is treated as a separate value.

> **Example**: Given a column named `Tags` with values like `"A, B, C"` and `"A, C"`, this activity creates new columns `Tags_A`, `Tags_B`, and `Tags_C`, and marks them with 1 or 0 based on whether that tag was present.

## Input

- **Data** – Required  
  Requires tabular structured input with at least one column containing delimited string values.

## Output

| Output Type | Format  | Description                                                  |
| ----------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Data**    | Tabular | Input with binary columns replacing the original tag column. |

## Configuration Fields

| Field Name          | Description                                                               |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Column To Split** | The name of the input column to split and unfold. Required.               |
| **Separator**       | The delimiter used to split the string (e.g., `,`, `;`, space). Optional. |

## Sample Input

| ID  | Tags |
| --- | ---- |
| 1   | A, B |
| 2   | B, C |
| 3   | A, C |

## Sample Configuration

| Field         | Value |
| ------------- | ----- |
| ColumnToSplit | Tags  |
| Separator     | ,     |

## Sample Output

| ID  | Tags_A | Tags_B | Tags_C |
| --- | ------ | ------ | ------ |
| 1   | 1      | 1      | 0      |
| 2   | 0      | 1      | 1      |
| 3   | 1      | 0      | 1      |