TEXTJOIN/ CONCATENATE with numbering and formatting

[Shark88]

I’m trying to combine a series of cells but want it in a list format, so for example if the cells are:
A1 Apple
A2 01/01/2024
A3 Banana
A4 02/01/2024
A5
A6

I want it to read:

1. Apple 01/01/2024
2. Banana 02/01/2024

I’m currently using

TEXTJOIN(“”,TRUE, “1.”,A1,TEXT(A2, “mm/dd/yyyy”),CHAR(10), “2.”,A3,TEXT(A4, mm/dd/yyyy”),CHAR(10), “3.”, A5, TEXT(A6, mm/dd/yyy”))

The problem is that each column has varying numbers of fields to combine so I want it to essentially stop adding the numbering and empty date showing up as 01/00/1900.

If I remove the text for the date formatting, regardless of how the information is stored it keeps trying to return it as a number and I have not found another way of fixing that. I can’t seem to find another way to add a number in front to create steps in a list either, but I end up having the following returned:

1. Apple 01/01/2024
2. Banana 02/01/2024
3. 01/00/1900

 

[Rick Rothstein]

Neat indeed. I've played around a bit and it seems like the default behavior is left to right then top down. To join top down then left right I've added TRANPOSE.
I've also noticed the format mm/dd/e what does the 'e' mean?

It is sort of a universal pattern character for the 4-digit year (it works in multiple locales).

 

[Cubist]

It has been an interesting thread and learned a few things. Incorporating different ideas presented here...

Book1
	A	B
1	Apple	1. Apple 01/01/2024 2. Banana 02/01/2024 3. Cake 03/01/2024 4. Danish 04/01/2024
2	1/1/24
3	Banana
4	2/1/24
5	Cake
6	3/1/24
7	Danish
8	4/1/24
Sheet8

Cell Formulas
Range	Formula
B1	B1	=CONCAT(IF(ISNUMBER(A1:A8),TEXT(A1:A8," mm/dd/e")&CHAR(10),SEQUENCE(ROWS(A1:A8),,,0.5)&". "&A1:A8))