Gather data tidy in Excel using VBA - vba

Question

What the case is:
So I got a "results sample" in excel format that needs filtering and reshaping to look nice. It is a result that will be not identical all the time but it follows similar rules. I have to filter it further and make it a little more tidy. I have figured out the filtering part, but I am not sure how to sort the remaining data, in a tidy way.
What the situation is:
There are six columns involved.
Notice: Real deal is not THAT simple, but what I need can be demonstrated using such a simple example and then I can manage more complex stuff myself I suppose.
For our example we use columns from B to G
The data are set as pairs of a "title" and a value.
For instance, if you look the first example picture I provide, The first detais the pair B3 and C3.
As you can see, looking at the same picture, D3 and E3 is an empty pair.
Same goes for D4 - E4 and F4 - G4 and so on until a last one at B11 - C11.
Starting data example:
[
What I want to achieve:
I would like, using Visual Basic for Applications, to sort the data, starting from let's say for our example B3 (see second picture) and fill three SETS of two columns, (BC, DE, FG) if there are no data inside those cells.
Notice: If a cell like D3 is null then SURELY E3 will be null too so there can be just only one check. I mean we can check either value columns or title columns.
Notice2: The B,D,F or C,E,G columns DON'T have to be sorted. I just want all the not-null values of B,D,F and their respective values from C,E,G gathered together neat so printing will not need 30 pages but just a few (too many spaces between is causing it and I try to automate the cleanup)

Answer 1

Here's something to start with. The first double loop populates a VBA Collection with Range variables that refer to the Cells that contain the titles.
The associated values are obtained by using an offset. The middle double loop performs a bubble sort on the latter (highly inefficient - you might want to replace it with something else). The next if statement creates a 2nd sheet if it doesn't exist on which to write out the results (last loop).
Option Explicit
Sub GatherData()
Dim lastRow As Integer, lastCol As Integer
Dim r As Integer, c As Integer
Dim vals As Collection
Set vals = New Collection
With Sheets(1)
lastCol = .UsedRange.Columns(.UsedRange.Columns.Count).Column
lastRow = .UsedRange.Rows(.UsedRange.Rows.Count).row
For c = 1 To lastCol Step 2
For r = 1 To lastRow
If (Trim(Cells(r, c).Value) <> "") Then
vals.Add .Cells(r, c)
End If
Next
Next
End With
' Bubble Sort
Dim i As Integer, j As Integer
Dim vTemp As Range
For i = 1 To vals.Count - 1
For j = i + 1 To vals.Count
If vals(i).Value > vals(j).Value Then
Set vTemp = vals(j)
vals.Remove j
vals.Add vTemp, vTemp, i
End If
Next j
Next i
Dim sht2 As Worksheet
If ThisWorkbook.Worksheets.Count = 1 Then
Set sht2 = ThisWorkbook.Sheets.Add(After:=ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1))
Else
Set sht2 = Worksheets(2)
End If
With sht2
r = 3
c = 2
For i = 1 To vals.Count
.Cells(r, c).Value = vals(i).Value
.Cells(r, c + 1).Value = vals(i).Offset(, 1).Value
c = c + 2
If c = 8 Then
r = r + 1
c = 2
End If
Next
End With
End Sub

Answer 2

Here is a method using the Dictionary object. I use early binding which requires setting a reference to Microsoft Scripting Runtime. If you are going to be distributing this, you might want to convert this to late-binding.
We assume that your data is properly formed as you show it above. In other words, all the titles are in even numbered columns; and the results are in the adjacent cell.
We create the dictionary using the Title as the Key, and the adjacent cell value for the Dictionary item.
We collect the information
Transfer the Keys to a VBA array and sort alphabetically
create a "Results Array" and populate it in order
write the results to a worksheet.
I will leave formatting and header generation to you.
By the way, there is a constant in the code for the number of Title/Value pair columns. I have set it to 3, but you can vary that.
Enjoy
Option Explicit
Option Compare Text 'If you want the sorting to be case INsensitive
'set reference to Microsoft Scripting Runtime
Sub TidyData()
'Assume Titles are in even numbered columns
'Assume want ColPairs pairs of columns for output
'Use dictionary with Title as key, and Value as the item
Dim dctTidy As Dictionary
Dim arrKeys As Variant
Dim wsSrc As Worksheet, wsRes As Worksheet, rRes As Range
Dim vSrc As Variant, vRes As Variant
Dim LastRow As Long, LastCol As Long
Dim I As Long, J As Long, K As Long, L As Long
Dim V As Variant
'in Results
Const ColPairs As Long = 3
'Set Source and results worksheet and range
Set wsSrc = Worksheets("sheet1")
Set wsRes = Worksheets("sheet2")
Set rRes = wsRes.Cells(1, 2)
'Read source data into variant array
With wsSrc.Cells
LastRow = .Find(what:="*", after:=.Item(1, 1), _
LookIn:=xlValues, searchorder:=xlByRows, searchdirection:=xlPrevious).Row
LastCol = .Find(what:="*", after:=.Item(1, 1), _
LookIn:=xlValues, searchorder:=xlByColumns, searchdirection:=xlPrevious).Column
vSrc = .Range(.Cells(1, 1), .Cells(LastRow, LastCol))
End With
'Collect the data into a dictionary
Set dctTidy = New Dictionary
For I = 1 To UBound(vSrc, 1)
For J = 2 To UBound(vSrc, 2) Step 2
If vSrc(I, J) <> "" Then _
dctTidy.Add Key:=vSrc(I, J), Item:=vSrc(I, J + 1)
Next J
Next I
'For this purpose, we can do a simple sort on the dictionary keys,
' and then create our results array in the sorted order.
arrKeys = dctTidy.Keys
Quick_Sort arrKeys, LBound(arrKeys), UBound(arrKeys)
'Create results array
ReDim vRes(1 To WorksheetFunction.RoundUp(dctTidy.Count / ColPairs, 0), 1 To ColPairs * 2)
I = 0
J = 0
For Each V In arrKeys
K = Int(I / ColPairs) + 1
L = (J Mod ColPairs) * 2 + 1
vRes(K, L) = V
vRes(K, L + 1) = dctTidy(V)
I = I + 1
J = J + 1
Next V
'write the results
Set rRes = rRes.Resize(UBound(vRes, 1), UBound(vRes, 2))
With rRes
.Worksheet.Cells.Clear
.Value = vRes
.HorizontalAlignment = xlCenter
End With
End Sub
Sub Quick_Sort(ByRef SortArray As Variant, ByVal first As Long, ByVal last As Long)
Dim Low As Long, High As Long
Dim Temp As Variant, List_Separator As Variant
Low = first
High = last
List_Separator = SortArray((first + last) / 2)
Do
Do While (SortArray(Low) < List_Separator)
Low = Low + 1
Loop
Do While (SortArray(High) > List_Separator)
High = High - 1
Loop
If (Low <= High) Then
Temp = SortArray(Low)
SortArray(Low) = SortArray(High)
SortArray(High) = Temp
Low = Low + 1
High = High - 1
End If
Loop While (Low <= High)
If (first < High) Then Quick_Sort SortArray, first, High
If (Low < last) Then Quick_Sort SortArray, Low, last
End Sub

Answer 3

Assuming we got all variables set and initialized properly, in this example:
Sheets("sheetname").Select ' because stupid things can happen...
For i = 3 To 13
Let newrangeT = "B" & i '
Let newrangeV = "C" & i '
If Sheets("sheetname").Range(newrangeV) <> "" Then
values(Position) = Sheets("sheetname").Range(newrangeV)
titles(Position) = Sheets("sheetname").Range(newrangeT)
Position = Position + 1
Else
' Don't do anything if the fields are null
End If
Next i
Sheets("sheetname").Range("B1:G13").Clear
' We then get each data from the arrays with a For loop.
' We set a columnset variable to 1.
' We set a currentrow variable to 3.
' If columnset is 1 data will enter in B and C and columnset = columnset +1
' Then if columnset is 2 we set data to DE and columnset = columnset +1
' But if columnset is 2we set data to FG and columnset = 1 and currentrow = currentrow +1
' Iterating the arrays will result in a neat setting of the data, but it will add zeros for all the nulls. Thus we need an If statement that will exclude that values checking the TITLE array (that should contain a title instead). if the value is not 0 then... we run what I describe, otherwise we do nothing.
Putting the data in the array is half of the trick.
Then we clear the area.
We set two string variables to declare ranges (actually cell reference) for every cell iterated in the loop. Here I demonstrated only for column set B,C
but we have to do the same for the rest of the columns.
The If statement here checks for null. You might have different needs, so changing the if statement changes the filtering. Here I check if the cells are not null. If the cells of column C contain data, put those data in values array and the respective B data on titles array but where? Position starts as 1 and we then iterate it +1 each time it adds something.
You can set data from an array using this command:
' current_row is set to the first row of the spreadsheet we wanna fill.
Sheets("sheetname").Select ' because stupid things can happen...
newrangeV = "C" & current_row
Sheets("sheetname").Range(newrangeV) = values(j)
The rest is just putting things together.
In any case, I wanna thank both of the people involved in this question, because I might didn't got the solution, but I got an idea of how to do other stuff, like accidentally learning something new. Cheers.