Excel concatenate() is seriously crippled, it can add 2 or more strings together, as long as they are supplied as separate parameters. This means, when you have a range of cells with text which you want to add up to create a large text, you need to write an ugly looking biggish concatenate() or use ‘&’ operator over and again.
I felt bored enough the other day to write a better concatenate(), one that can accept a range as input and output one text with all the contents of the input range. What more you can use this to delimit the input range with your own favorite character.
For example, if each of the 7 cells in a1:a7 have “a”, “b”, “c”, “d”, “e”, “f”, “g”, if you want to add all of them up using concatenate you would have to write concatenate(a1,a2,a3,a4,a5,a6,a7) which can be painful if you are planning to do this over a large range or something.
Instead, you can use concat(a1:a7) by installing the UDF (User defined function) I have written. Its nothing miraculous or anything, it just does the dirty job of going through the range for you. If you want to delimit the input range with a comma just use concat(a1:a7,",") to get the out of a,b,c,d,e,f,g Just download the concat() UDF excel add-in and double click on it to install it. If you are little weary of installing UDFs / Macros from third parties, copy past the below excel code in a new sheet’s VB editor and save the sheet as an excel addin (.xla extension)
Added on Aug 26, 2008: I have updated the code, copy it again if you have the old one
Function concat(useThis As Range, Optional delim As String) As String
' this function will concatenate a range of cells and return one string
' useful when you have a rather large range of cells that you need to add up
Dim retVal, dlm As String
retVal = ""
If delim = Null Then
dlm = ""
Else
dlm = delim
End If
For Each cell In useThis
if cstr(cell.value)<>"" and cstr(cell.value)<>" " then
retVal = retVal & cstr(cell.Value) & dlm
end if
Next
If dlm <> "" Then
retVal = Left(retVal, Len(retVal) - Len(dlm))
End If
concat = retVal
End Function
Did you find this useful? Are you looking for some other excel UDFs as well, drop a comment, I am a busy coffee drinker, but between the sips I can whip out ugly looking but functional vb code 😛
12 Responses to “Analyzing Search Keywords using Excel : Array Formulas in Real Life”
Very interesting Chandoo, as always. Personally I find endless uses for formulae such as {=sum(if(B$2:B$5=$A2,$C$2$C$5))}, just the flexibility in absolute and relative relative referencing and multiple conditions gives it the edge over dsum and others methods.
I've added to my blog a piece on SQL in VBA that I think might be of interest to you http://aviatormonkey.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/lesson-one-sql-in-vba/ . It's a bit techie, but I think you might like it.
Keep up the good work, aviatormonkey
Hi Chandoo,
You might find this coded solution I posted on a forum interesting.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-programming/680810-create-tag-cloud-in-vba-possible.html
[...] under certain circumstances. One of the tips involved arranging search keywords in excel using Array Forumlas. Basically, if you need to know how frequent a word or group of keywords appear, you can use this [...]
@Aviatormonkey: Thanks for sharing the url. I found it a bit technical.. but very interesting.
@Andy: Looks like Jarad, the person who emailed me this problem has posted the same in excelforum too. Very good solution btw...
Realy great article
"You can take this basic model and extend it to include parameters like number of searches each key phrase has, how long the users stay on the site etc. to enhance the way tag cloud is generated and colored."
How would you go about doing this? I think it would need some VB
Hi,
I found the usage very interesting, but is giving me hard time because the LENs formula that use ranges are not considering the full range, in other words, the LEN formula is only bringing results from the respective "line" cell.
Using the example, when I place the formula to calculate the frequency for "windows" brings me only 1 result, not 11 as displayed in the example. It seems that the LEN formula using ranges is considering the respective line within the range, not the full range.
Any hint?
@Thiago
You have to enter the formula as an Array Formula
Enter the Formula and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Not just Enter
Thank you, Hui! I couldn't work out how this didn't work
is there a limit to the number of lines it can analyse.
Ie i am trying to get this to work on a list of sentances 1500 long.
@Gary
In Excel 2010/2013 Excel is only limited by available memory,
So just give it a go
As always try on a copy of the file first if you have any doubts
Apologies if I am missing something, but coudn't getting frequency be easier with Countif formula. Something like this - COUNTIF(Range with text,"*"&_cell with keyword_&"*")
Apologies if I missed, but what is the Array Formula to:
1. Analyze a list of URL's or a list of word phrases to understand frequency;
2. List in a nearby column from most used words to least used words;
3. Next to the list of words the count of occurrences.