alphabetical order within a cell

Hi

I have lists of postcodes [zip codes] in cells - many codes together in the
same cell - , but only the first two characters. For example: CT, TN, BN,
RH, etc etc.

There are a lot of them. Could someone tell me how to get Excel to order
these alphabetically in each cell that contains them please?

Note..this is not about a single code in its own cell but multiple codes in
a single cell.

Many thanks
David

Take the code below and put it into a code module. Choose the cell to sort
contents on (one at a time) and run this code/macro. I've tried to break
long lines so that it can just be cut and pasted, but you never can tell
about things here until you actually post. Then it's a little late to edit

Sub SortOneCellContents()
'choose the cell with contents
'to be sorted before calling
'this routine
'
'we will assume that the
'separator for character groups
'is the space character
'and that the first character in the
'cell is not a space
'
'that is to say, this routine
'parses, sorts, and puts back together
'a cell content that might look
'something like
'CT NV TN OR DC CA MN
'
Dim RawCellData As String
Dim ToBeSorted() As String
Dim TheSeparator As String
Dim IsSorted As Boolean
Dim BubbleLoop As Integer
Dim SwapHolder As String

If IsEmpty(Selection) Then
MsgBox "Empty Cell"
Exit Sub ' no work to be done
End If

ReDim ToBeSorted(1) 'initialize
TheSeparator = " " ' change if something besides space
RawCellData = Selection.Value
'force space at end of string if one isn't there
'when we start here
If Right(RawCellData, 1) <> TheSeparator Then
RawCellData = RawCellData & TheSeparator
End If

Do Until InStr(RawCellData, TheSeparator) = 0
ToBeSorted(UBound(ToBeSorted)) = _
Left(RawCellData, InStr(RawCellData, TheSeparator) - 1)
If Len(RawCellData) = Len(ToBeSorted(UBound(ToBeSorted))) + 1 Then
RawCellData = "" ' all done
Else ' more work to be done
'remove what we just put into the array
RawCellData = _
Right(RawCellData, Len(RawCellData) - _
(Len(ToBeSorted(UBound(ToBeSorted))) + 1))
End If
'make room for another - will end up being empty
ReDim Preserve ToBeSorted(UBound(ToBeSorted) + 1)
Loop
'now a simple bubble kind of sort to get them in ascending order
Do Until IsSorted = True
IsSorted = True ' not really, but may be later
For BubbleLoop = LBound(ToBeSorted) To UBound(ToBeSorted) - 1
If ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop + 1) < ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop) Then
SwapHolder = ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop)
ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop) = ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop + 1)
ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop + 1) = SwapHolder
IsSorted = False ' wasn't this time thru
End If
Next
Loop
'now rebuild the string
'reuse BubbleLoop counter and RawCellData for this loop also
RawCellData = "" ' just to make sure it's empty
For BubbleLoop = LBound(ToBeSorted) To UBound(ToBeSorted)
If ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop) <> "" Then
RawCellData = RawCellData & ToBeSorted(BubbleLoop) & TheSeparator
End If
Next
Selection.Value = Trim(RawCellData)
End Sub

"David" wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have lists of postcodes [zip codes] in cells - many codes together in the
> same cell - , but only the first two characters. For example: CT, TN, BN,
> RH, etc etc.
>
> There are a lot of them. Could someone tell me how to get Excel to order
> these alphabetically in each cell that contains them please?
>
> Note..this is not about a single code in its own cell but multiple codes in
> a single cell.
>
> Many thanks
> David
>
>
>

Wow. And here I was thinking that Excel was easy to use. But I've pasted
this code into the VB [takes me back] editor and run it, all in the correct
manner purely by fluke, and it worked fantastically. Thank you.

David

You're welcome. Excel is easy to use. Just some things that don't have
built in functions to solve. This actually could have been done on a
worksheet using some of the text parsing functions people have built and then
using the Data | Sort feature and then concatenating the results back into a
string. But that would have been a lot more manual work for you. Having a
variable number of state IDs in the cells was also something that I thought
about and it would have complicated the worksheet solution.

By the way, that is a very generic solution. It would work on any text
contained in a single cell, including variable length strings like perhaps a
list of names or colors or such. I think that it could be improved by coding
up a different sort, say a heap or shell sort, but for short lists, the
simple bubble works fine enough.

"David" wrote:

> Wow. And here I was thinking that Excel was easy to use. But I've pasted
> this code into the VB [takes me back] editor and run it, all in the correct
> manner purely by fluke, and it worked fantastically. Thank you.
>
> David
>
>
>
>

Have to say that that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Double dutch?
Anyway, thanks again. Only fault is that it would have been perfect had it
ordered by number as well [not just by anything that began with '1'.

--
David Kitching Msc. Msc.
Managing Director
Natural Deco Ltd.
The Manor
Manor Lane
Loxley
Warwickshire CV35 9JX
UK.

Tel: +44 (0) 1789 470040
Mob: +44 (0) 7799 118518
www.naturaldeco.co.uk

"JLatham" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> You're welcome. Excel is easy to use. Just some things that don't have
> built in functions to solve. This actually could have been done on a
> worksheet using some of the text parsing functions people have built and
> then
> using the Data | Sort feature and then concatenating the results back into
> a
> string. But that would have been a lot more manual work for you. Having
> a
> variable number of state IDs in the cells was also something that I
> thought
> about and it would have complicated the worksheet solution.
>
> By the way, that is a very generic solution. It would work on any text
> contained in a single cell, including variable length strings like perhaps
> a
> list of names or colors or such. I think that it could be improved by
> coding
> up a different sort, say a heap or shell sort, but for short lists, the
> simple bubble works fine enough.
>
> "David" wrote:
>
>> Wow. And here I was thinking that Excel was easy to use. But I've pasted
>> this code into the VB [takes me back] editor and run it, all in the
>> correct
>> manner purely by fluke, and it worked fantastically. Thank you.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>

Ok - simply put, we could have done this with functions in cells, but we
would have had to take a very long trip through the woods to get to where we
wanted to be. The code solution was, in my opinion, easiest to implement.
But I could have done some things to make it a little better even.

By being generic, I mean it works for any group of text in a cell, not just
the types of entries you had. It is independent of length of the groups in a
cell even. Try typing in "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" in a
cell and running the code against that cell. :-)

"David" wrote:

> Have to say that that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Double dutch?
> Anyway, thanks again. Only fault is that it would have been perfect had it
> ordered by number as well [not just by anything that began with '1'.
>
> --
> David Kitching Msc. Msc.
> Managing Director
> Natural Deco Ltd.
> The Manor
> Manor Lane
> Loxley
> Warwickshire CV35 9JX
> UK.
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 1789 470040
> Mob: +44 (0) 7799 118518
> www.naturaldeco.co.uk
>
> "JLatham" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > You're welcome. Excel is easy to use. Just some things that don't have
> > built in functions to solve. This actually could have been done on a
> > worksheet using some of the text parsing functions people have built and
> > then
> > using the Data | Sort feature and then concatenating the results back into
> > a
> > string. But that would have been a lot more manual work for you. Having
> > a
> > variable number of state IDs in the cells was also something that I
> > thought
> > about and it would have complicated the worksheet solution.
> >
> > By the way, that is a very generic solution. It would work on any text
> > contained in a single cell, including variable length strings like perhaps
> > a
> > list of names or colors or such. I think that it could be improved by
> > coding
> > up a different sort, say a heap or shell sort, but for short lists, the
> > simple bubble works fine enough.
> >
> > "David" wrote:
> >
> >> Wow. And here I was thinking that Excel was easy to use. But I've pasted
> >> this code into the VB [takes me back] editor and run it, all in the
> >> correct
> >> manner purely by fluke, and it worked fantastically. Thank you.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>