Concatenating column B values if left adjacent cell is empty

Yeah, unfortunately I am working with such a large amount of data here that it doesn't want to cooperate by making it easy and convenient to read. There are thousands of servers and the software includes everything from Google Chrome to .net framework updates to security updates for various tools. But what I have now is the easiest to search through I believe. I can query the inventory for a server and then it will just show me the column(s) of data associated with it. From there I can just Ctrl+F to search more specifically. Thanks for trying to help me with my issue. I appreciate it. I have much to learn!!

SergeiBaklan 

JayNixon 

I see, thank you for the explanation. Perhaps servers in columns will be more compact and searchable, but it all depends on your concrete data.

SergeiBaklan 

I am importing this into a sharepoint webpage through the excel app and if I kept all the applications in columns then some of the servers would have 100+ columns. I am positive there is a better way to accomplish my task but am a new intern and I lack the knowledge to do so. :/

JayNixon 

If not a secret, what's the reason keep list of server software in so long strings instead of columns cell?

You have done it! Thank you for your dedication to this issue of mine. This works perfectly. Brad_Yundt 

It sounds like it will work. I will be able to try it in a couple hours or so and will report back.

As far as the overflow, additional rows are acceptable.Brad_Yundt 

Thanks for sending me the file. I can reproduce the problem with my Excel 2016/Office 365 64-bit.

Excel cells can hold a maximum of 32,767 characters. Your problem server has 86,510 characters worth of software. I am guessing an overflow occurs that results in the loss of your data.

To test this hypothesis, I modified the code to truncate the software list to the first 32,767 characters. Now the macro seems to work.

Sub Sequelize()
Dim rg As Range
Dim delimiter As String, s As String
Dim i As Long, k As Long, n As Long, nData As Long
Dim vData As Variant, vResults As Variant

delimiter = ", "
Set rg = Range("A2").CurrentRegion
Set rg = rg.Offset(1, 0).Resize(rg.Rows.Count - 1, rg.Columns.Count)
n = rg.Rows.Count
nData = Application.CountA(rg.Columns(1))
vData = rg.Value
ReDim vResults(1 To nData, 1 To 2)

For i = 1 To n
    If vData(i, 1) <> "" Then
        k = k + 1
        vResults(k, 1) = vData(i, 1)
        If s <> "" Then
            If i > 1 Then vResults(k - 1, 2) = Left$(s, 32767)
        End If
        s = IIf(vData(i, 2) = "", "", vData(i, 2))
    Else
        If vData(i, 2) <> "" Then
            If s = "" Then
                s = vData(i, 2)
            Else
                s = s & delimiter & vData(i, 2)
            End If
        End If
    End If
Next
If s <> "" Then vResults(k, 2) = Left$(s, 32767)

rg.ClearContents
rg.Resize(nData, 2).Value = vResults
End Sub

Please try running the revised macro on your full dataset. If it works, we can then shift discussion to how best to handle the text in the overflow. Perhaps additional columns or rows?

JayNixon,

I would like test my code on your actual workbook. It's OK if you replace all the data with the letter "x" as long as you can reproduce the problem. You can post a workbook in this thread, or you could email it to me at first initial last name at my ISP, which is alum dot mit dot edu. I would then like to try reproducing the problem. Fixing the problem is easy if I can reproduce it.

It's possible that there is a limitation of Excel VBA present in your version of Excel that is not in mine. All my testing so far has been on 64-bit Excel 2016/Office 365 running on Windows 10--but I have other versions available for testing (both Mac and Windows, 32-bit and 64-bit, 2007 to date).

Please tell me:

Which version of Excel do you use, Mac or Windows?

If Windows, is 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or 2019?

Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

Here is a couple screenshots of the macro with a before and after running.

Brad_Yundt 

I formatted the empty cells and tested them with the =isblank and they all came up false, except for of course the cells with actual values. Although after deleting that =isblank column I still was unable to get the macro to run correctly. It is still deleting all the data in the worksheet. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Will troubleshoot a bit more but I thought you might want an update. I also checked column B for blanks and came up with none as well. Thanks again Brad.

You can test whether a cell is truly blank using a formula like:

=ISBLANK(A2)

My guess is that many of your column A cells look blank but actually contain an invisible value, such as a single quote, space, non-breaking space, Tab or Carriage Return character.

JayNixon 

Might you have empty strings or spaces in those "blank" cells? If you do, the macro won't work right.

Currently 235493 entries on column A. Brad_Yundt 

If you select column A with your raw data, how many values are there? It should say something like Count: 6267 at the right of the status bar at the bottom of the application window.