Using Individual Columns to Map Data to a Table Array - vba

Question

Suppose I have two columns, C1 and C2, each of which contains real valued data. I would like to create a two-dimensional table from these columns where each row is a specific range of values in C1 (e.g. 400-500) and each column a specific range of values in C2 (e.g. 10-14). This is easy enough by sorting C1 and C2 and determining reasonable ranges. The key issue I is that I have a third column C3 whose values I would like to fill the table with. In particular, I would like to be able to select C3 and have it check the associated values in C1 and C2 and use this information to place the value in the appropriate cell at the intersection of those two values of the table. Is this something that would require VBA?

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, your C3 has (C1, C2) as coordinates. Your original coordinates in C1 is a number but in the matrix it is a non-overlapping range, e.g., C1 can be 413 but this falls under the range 401-500 in your new matrix. It is possible to do this without VBA by using VLOOKUP for data mapping and transformation.
Of course, as the method gets more and more complex, to facilitate future reuse, amendments and readability, it is recommended to use VBA, where it is simpler to add comments and see the algorithm at work in a continuous flow.
If you want to avoid using VBA, what you could do is derive the range in which C1 falls using VLOOKUP range lookup, and combine this range and the C2 value into one cell, separated by a comma, then sort data in C3 by this new column in ascending order. Note that when using VLOOKUP range lookup, it will always give a response, as it will look for the maximum value that is equal to or less than your C1 value, so it tends not to result in #N/A; you have to make sure that your ranges cover all possible values of C1.
Assuming your C1 ranges are found in Column A and your C2 values are all found in Row 1, you could use VLOOKUP to populate the matrix, then handle any #N/A thereafter.
So we have:
Table of C3 values
C1 values in Column B
C2 values in Column C
Combined coordinates in Column D in Sheet
Resulting C3 values in Column E
Table of C1 ranges
Minimum value of range in Column A
Actual range in Column B
Create the table of C1 ranges
Min val Range
0 0
1 1-100
101 101-200
201 201-300
301 301-400
401 401-500
501 501-600
etc.
Combine the C1 and C2 coordinates into Column D. For example, this translates C1 = 413, C2 = 21 to "400-500,21",
=VLOOKUP(B2,TableC1Ranges!$A$2:$B$100,2)&","&C2
Then Sort by Column D and use VLOOKUP in the matrix of C1 and C2 values
=VLOOKUP($A2&","&B$1,TableC3!$D$2:$E$1000,2,FALSE)