Solved

Editing CSV with Excel VBA

Posted on 2014-02-24

Microsoft Excel

1 solution

Medium Priority

479 Views

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

Comment

Question by:nickedwards

[X]

Welcome to Experts Exchange

Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.

Help others & share knowledge
Earn cash & points
Learn & ask questions

Join The Community

2 Comments

LVL 93

Accepted Solution

by:Patrick Matthews

Patrick Matthews earned 2000 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

Open in new window

LVL 1

Author Closing Comment

by:nickedwards

ID: 398855192014-02-25

Worked a treat! Thanks.

Featured Post

Question has a verified solution.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question

Excel code to find and report on links in the selected ActiveWorkbook (formulas, range names, pivotTables & charts)

Article by: Dave

A little background as to how I came to I design this code: Around 5 years ago I designed an add-in that formatted Excel files to a corporate standard, applying different cell colours and font type depending on whether the cells contained inputs,…

Microsoft Excel

Deleting Shapes - A Warning

Article by: Martin

This article describes a serious pitfall that can happen when deleting shapes using VBA.

Building Probability Models in Excel Part 4: Discrete Random Variables

Video by: Toby

The viewer will learn how to use the =DISCRINV command to create a discrete random variable, use this command to model a set of probabilities and outcomes in a Monte Carlo simulation, and learn how to find the standard deviation of a set of probabil…