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steveb[_2_] steveb[_2_] is offline
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Default manipulating large data sets for graphing

I use a data logging program that records data points in an access
database that I export to excel for graphing. A data log may have many
thousands of readings. I need a quick way to put the data into a form
that I can graph with Excel.

The data is in three columns. The first column contains a repeating
list of the sensor names, which always appear in the same order
(e.g.: [sensor 1, sensor 2, sensor 3...] {sensor 1, sensor 2,
sensor 3...] ). The second column has the time of the sensor reading,
with one time per group of sensor readings. And the third column has
the temperature associated with the read time and the sensor name.

I want to graph the data with time on the x axis, temperature on the
y axis, and a line (or series of data points) for each sensor. Based
on my understanding of how data must appear in Excel in order to graph
it, I have struggled using if statements and data sorting to put the
data into a form where there is a column for each sensor with
temperature readings in the column cells, and a time column with a
line for each time reading.

Is there an easier way?