It absolutely can be done in VB; in fact I would say, theoretically, that any
full programming language can do it, even if some can do it more easily than
others. This one would be easier to do in other languages, but it wouldn't
be really easy in any language - possibly excepting REXX, and maybe LISP if I
knew LISP - and if Excel is where the data is stored then it's probably the
right place to process it.

Let's see, now. There may be a more elegant way to do it, but I think each
string in column B can be parsed as follows:

1) Change every string of consecutive <spaces to a single <space.
2) Next change every occurrence of <space<hyphen and <hyphen<space to a
single <hyphen.
3) Next change every occurrence of <comma, <space<comma and
<comma<space to a single <space.

Now you have a string consisting simply of "<i <j-<k <l" etc. You can
take each space-delimited group in turn. Each one that has a hyphen in it
can be divided and then turned into a list of numbers <j through <k, and
each group without a hyphen is number by itself. Each number thus generated
must be concatenated to the value in column A and written to a new cell in
your resulting list.

As I said, this isn't exactly elegant, but it's more easily described than
some of the solutions that would run faster. How much detail do you want to
get into?

--- "Frank Pytel" wrote:
I am trying to help someone, for which I am not sure there exists a solution. He
has a .csv file that he is opening in Excel. The values, somehow, import into the
correct conglomeration of data. More in a minute.

Column A is a number formatted as text. Column B is a series of numbers, some
formatted as text. Those that are not formatted as text, are separated by
commas (Huh!!) and hyphens.

The object is to concatenate the two values together. Example:

A | B | C
| |
1 | 357 |Argentina
| |
345 |32,34,39 |Paraguay
| 40-45 |
| |
33945 |27-30,41, | USA
|43, 45 |

The data should finally look like this for USA (etc.)

A | B
3394527 |USA
3394528 |USA
3394529 |USA
3394530 |USA
3394541 |USA
3394543 |USA
3394545 |USA

Which column the new values end up in does not matter. I know how to do this
fairly rapidly with formula's and a big enough worksheet. Then copy and paste
the values to where I want them.

I am wondering if this is even possible. I am not a big VB fan. I like to
avoid them if I can, but I wonder if this can even be handeled by VB. Column
B on one of the cells looks like this as an example.

264235, 264469, 264476, 264497, 264536-264539, 264543, 264581-264584,
264724, 264729, 264772-264773

There is no regularity to the number of digits. There is no regularity to
the hyphenation location. There is no regularity to the format of the numbers
(which I guess all could be changed to numbers and back to text for
concantenation) and there is no regularity to the quantity of values in the
cell.

Is there any hope for this? Any help would be appreciated.

PS. I see a lot of posts here that look really nice. I am on the Office
Online site. I know these posts can be viewed and edited at other sites. Can
I set this up in Outlook so that I can Post and search. Kind of like Outlook
Express? Thanks