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Editing CSV with Excel VBA

Posted on 2014-02-24

Microsoft Excel

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Last Modified: 2014-02-25

Hi,

I'm preparing a CSV file for a web upload. I have thousands of products and I'm attempting to do this using VBA before I hit it manually. The CSV is a file full of products, SKUs and their attributes such as color and size. Below is a sample:

A B C D E
SKU01        T-Shirt 1 Black S               T-Shirt 1        Black       S
SKU02        T-Shirt 1 Black M               T-Shirt 1        Black       M
SKU03        T-Shirt 1 Black L               T-Shirt 1        Black       L
SKU04        Running Gloves 1 Red M              Running Gl       Red      M
SKU05        Running Gloves 1 Red L        Running Gl       Red        L
SKU06        Running Gloves 1 Grey M        Running Gl       Grey       M
SKU07        Running Gloves 1 Grey L        Running Gl       Grey       L
SKU08        Wooly Hat                     Wooly Hat
SKU09        Running Socks 1 White S        Running So       White       S
SKU10        Running Socks 1 White M        Running So       White       M

Column A is the SKU, B the Description, C is the first 10 characters of the description, D and E are the product attributes which have been extracted from the description. I basically need the VBA script to generate the following:

A B C D E
SKU01CON       T-Shirt 1
SKU01        T-Shirt 1 Black S        T-Shirt 1        Black        S
SKU02        T-Shirt 1 Black M        T-Shirt 1        Black        M
SKU03        T-Shirt 1 Black L        T-Shirt 1        Black        L
SKU04CON       Running Gloves 1
SKU04        Running Gloves 1 Red M        Running Gl        Red        M
SKU05        Running Gloves 1 Red L        Running Gl        Red        L
SKU06        Running Gloves 1 Grey M Running Gl        Black        M
SKU07        Running Gloves 1 Grey L Running Gl        Black        L

You can see that there have been two additional entries made, this is what I need. The additional product entries group the similar products together.

This is the way I was looking at achieving it:

Move through each row, IF columns D or E <> "" AND column C is <> to the cell above then insert a new row.

Copy the contents of A to the newly generated row whilst concatenating it with "CON"

Copy the contents of B to the newly generated row whilst removing the attributes in D and/or E (with spaces before)

Firstly, would you agree? It's not a solid plan. Secondly, how do I do this in VBA?

I have 7000 product entries to work through, I'm hoping to avoid any manual work. Thanks for your help!

Nick

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Question by:nickedwards

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2 Comments

LVL 92

Accepted Solution

by:Patrick Matthews

Patrick Matthews earned 500 total points

ID: 398831172014-02-24

The following macro appears to do the trick:

Q-28372723.xlsm

Open it, then run the macro for FixCSV.

The code itself is:

Sub FixCSV()
    
    Dim SourcePath As Variant
    Dim DestFileNameStub As String
    Dim DestPath As Variant
    Dim SourceWb As Workbook
    Dim DestWb As Workbook
    Dim DestWs As Worksheet
    Dim LastR As Long
    Dim SourceArr As Variant
    Dim Counter As Long
    Dim DestR As Long
    Dim ShortDescr As String
    Dim xAttribute As String
    Dim Product As String
    
    SourcePath = Application.GetOpenFilename("CSV Files (*.csv), *.csv", , "Select original CSV file...", , False)
    If SourcePath = False Then
        MsgBox "No file chosen", vbCritical, "Aborting Macro"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    DestFileNameStub = Mid(SourcePath, InStrRev(SourcePath, "\") + 1)
    DestFileNameStub = Left(DestFileNameStub, Len(DestFileNameStub) - 4)
    
    DestPath = Application.GetSaveAsFilename(DestFileNameStub & "-new.csv", "CSV Files (*.csv), *.csv", , "Save new file to...")
    If DestPath = False Then
        MsgBox "No file chosen", vbCritical, "Aborting Macro"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    Set SourceWb = Workbooks.Open(SourcePath)
    Set DestWb = Workbooks.Add
    Set DestWs = DestWb.Worksheets(1)
    
    With SourceWb.Worksheets(1)
        LastR = .Cells(.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row
        SourceArr = .Range("a1").Resize(LastR, 5)
    End With
    
    With DestWs
        For Counter = 1 To LastR
            If SourceArr(Counter, 3) <> ShortDescr Then
                If SourceArr(Counter, 4) <> "" Or SourceArr(Counter, 5) <> "" Then
                    ShortDescr = SourceArr(Counter, 3)
                    DestR = DestR + 1
                    .Cells(DestR, 1) = SourceArr(Counter, 1) & "CON"
                    Product = SourceArr(Counter, 2)
                    xAttribute = SourceArr(Counter, 5)
                    If xAttribute <> "" Then
                        Product = Left(Product, Len(Product) - Len(xAttribute) - 1)
                    End If
                    xAttribute = SourceArr(Counter, 4)
                    If xAttribute <> "" Then
                        Product = Left(Product, Len(Product) - Len(xAttribute) - 1)
                    End If
                    .Cells(DestR, 2) = Product
                End If
            End If
            DestR = DestR + 1
            .Cells(DestR, 1) = SourceArr(Counter, 1)
            .Cells(DestR, 2) = SourceArr(Counter, 2)
            .Cells(DestR, 3) = SourceArr(Counter, 3)
            .Cells(DestR, 4) = SourceArr(Counter, 4)
            .Cells(DestR, 5) = SourceArr(Counter, 5)
        Next
    End With
    
    Application.DisplayAlerts = False
    DestWb.SaveAs DestPath, xlCSV
    DestWb.Close
    SourceWb.Close
    Application.DisplayAlerts = True
    
    MsgBox "Done"
    
End Sub

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LVL 1

Author Closing Comment

by:nickedwards

ID: 398855192014-02-25

Worked a treat! Thanks.

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