title: How do I split this array of strings into table rows in U-SQL?
body: <p>I was trying this snippet to split my json array.</p>
  <pre><code>activity =
      //to extract json object required, only &quot;activity&quot; field is to be parsed and not &quot;nameOfWebsite&quot;
      EXTRACT activities : string
      FROM @input
      USING Extract.Json(rowPath: &quot;[]&quot;); 
  
  activities_arr =
      SELECT
          //splitting into array based on delimiter
          new ARRAY&lt;string&gt;(activities.Split(',')) AS activities 
      FROM activity
      ;
  
  activities_output =
      SELECT activities
      FROM activities_arr AS ac
      CROSS APPLY EXPLODE(ac.activities) AS activities //to split above array into rows
      ;
  </code></pre>
  <p>Input is like this</p>
  <pre><code>[
  {
    &quot;nameOfWebsite&quot;: &quot;StackOverflow&quot;, // this object is not required
    &quot;activities&quot;: [
      &quot;Python&quot;,
      &quot;U-SQL&quot;,
      &quot;JavaScript&quot;
     ]
  }
  ]
  </code></pre>
  <p>So, currently I am getting output as: 5 columns with one column as some random string not in input followed by 3 blank columns and then the 5th column contains Python, U-SQL, JavaScript in separate rows.
  Questions:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>Is there any way to avoid the 4 other columns as I only require data 4th column ie. only the name of activities?</li>
  <li>Why are there blank spaces in my current output when my delimiter is defined as ','?
  Current output (&quot;blank&quot; denotes blank space and not string blank)</li>
  </ol>
  <pre><code>AB#### &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; Python
  AB#### &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; U-SQL
  AB#### &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; &quot;blank&quot; JavaScript
  </code></pre>
  <p>Output expected</p>
  <pre><code>Python
  U-SQL
  JavaScript
  </code></pre>