The log that I'm analyzing consist of perhaps 5K unique entries that get
recorded perhaps 300K times over a period of several days. I've created a
map that groups the 5K unique entries into about a hundred categories. I
want to go back and tag each of the 300K instances with its category so that
I can summarize & analyze the log entries by those category groupings -
that's where the need for the vlookup comes in. The majority of the unique
entries are well under 255 characters, but unfortunately, a significant
number of them are not.

"Niek Otten" wrote:

I can't see how you would use such a string as a key. As a search argument,
OK, but not as an identifier that uniquely extracts one key.
Can you tell us how you intend to use these items? How is you search key
assembled/where does it come from? What data are you trying to look up using
the key?

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten

"jheby" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, the repeating strings, while present in this example, don't
occur in most cases. This example is more of an anomoly in that regard.

"jheby" wrote:

Excel vlookup function returns #VALUE when the lookup value exceeds 256
characters. I need a hash function to transform large strings into a
value
that does not exceed the 256 character limit. Are there any quick
solutions
to this problem?