How do I go about assigning a number to a particular piece of data? To give a
simple example of what I'm trying to do, and what I envision, I'll pretend
I'm building a sandwich.

1=white
2=wheat
3=ham
4=turkey
5=roast beef
6=lettuce
7=tomato
8=mayo
9=mustard
10=cheese

So, someone could come along and build their sandwich,
ham/turkey/tomato/mayo on white bread. Excel would then recognize that
1+3+4+7+8=23
23=The American (the name of the sandwich, which I've already assigned a
variable to)

I'm using the sandwich model because its a lot simpler than what I'm
attempting to do.

The problem with that simple model is that there could be other ways
of forming the number 23. An alternative numbering system would be to
consider the number as a series of 0s and 1s where each digit
represents one of the choices in sequence (starting with cheese). So,
your sandwich would be:

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

Now, you can actually think of this as being a binary number, which
has an equivalent decimal value of 205. This is unique for that
combination of choices. So, the numbers for each choice would be:

1=white
2=wheat
4=ham
8=turkey
16=roast beef
32=lettuce
64=tomato
128=mayo
256=mustard
512=cheese

You can extend this as far as you need.

Is this something you can work with (or am I barking up the wrong
tree?) ?

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Dec 11, 4:15*pm, Zack wrote:
How do I go about assigning a number to a particular piece of data? To give a
simple example of what I'm trying to do, and what I envision, I'll pretend
I'm building a sandwich.

1=white
2=wheat
3=ham
4=turkey
5=roast beef
6=lettuce
7=tomato
8=mayo
9=mustard
10=cheese

So, someone could come along and build their sandwich,
ham/turkey/tomato/mayo on white bread. Excel would then recognize that
1+3+4+7+8=23
23=The American (the name of the sandwich, which I've already assigned a
variable to)

I'm using the sandwich model because its a lot simpler than what I'm
attempting to do.

First, assigning a variable probably isn't the most accurate statement. I'm
really looking to assign a value to a particular piece of data. Second,
you've hit upon a critical element to this with regard to the numbering
sequence. Fortunately, I'm not building a sandwich, I'm building geothermal
units and there's about 500 different configurations a customer can choose
from.

What's the best way of going about assigning a value to each option?

"Pete_UK" wrote:

The problem with that simple model is that there could be other ways
of forming the number 23. An alternative numbering system would be to
consider the number as a series of 0s and 1s where each digit
represents one of the choices in sequence (starting with cheese). So,
your sandwich would be:

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

Now, you can actually think of this as being a binary number, which
has an equivalent decimal value of 205. This is unique for that
combination of choices. So, the numbers for each choice would be:

1=white
2=wheat
4=ham
8=turkey
16=roast beef
32=lettuce
64=tomato
128=mayo
256=mustard
512=cheese

You can extend this as far as you need.

Is this something you can work with (or am I barking up the wrong
tree?) ?

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Dec 11, 4:15 pm, Zack wrote:
How do I go about assigning a number to a particular piece of data? To give a
simple example of what I'm trying to do, and what I envision, I'll pretend
I'm building a sandwich.

1=white
2=wheat
3=ham
4=turkey
5=roast beef
6=lettuce
7=tomato
8=mayo
9=mustard
10=cheese

So, someone could come along and build their sandwich,
ham/turkey/tomato/mayo on white bread. Excel would then recognize that
1+3+4+7+8=23
23=The American (the name of the sandwich, which I've already assigned a
variable to)

I'm using the sandwich model because its a lot simpler than what I'm
attempting to do.

Well, if an option is really a matter of being included or not
included, then a binary approach as I outlined above would be
appropriate.

However, I suspect you might have some options that are multiple-
choices, like colour - here you could have a coding system like R for
red, B for Black etc, but this simple approach falls down if you offer
Blue as an option. Though you could still adopt a binary approach for
this, you would need several "bits" to describe the colour and the
numbers would not be so obvious as to what they represented.

Obviously, I know nothing about the options you offer, so I can only
generalise unless you can be more specific.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Dec 11, 6:01*pm, Zack wrote:
First, assigning a variable probably isn't the most accurate statement. I'm
really looking to assign a value to a particular piece of data. Second,
you've hit upon a critical element to this with regard to the numbering
sequence. Fortunately, I'm not building a sandwich, I'm building geothermal
units and there's about 500 different configurations a customer can choose
from.

What's the best way of going about assigning a value to each option?



"Pete_UK" wrote:
The problem with that simple model is that there could be other ways
of forming the number 23. An alternative numbering system would be to
consider the number as a series of 0s and 1s where each digit
represents one of the choices in sequence (starting with cheese). So,
your sandwich would be:

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1

Now, you can actually think of this as being a binary number, which
has an equivalent decimal value of 205. This is unique for that
combination of choices. So, the numbers for each choice would be:

1=white
2=wheat
4=ham
8=turkey
16=roast beef
32=lettuce
64=tomato
128=mayo
256=mustard
512=cheese

You can extend this as far as you need.

Is this something you can work with (or am I barking up the wrong
tree?) ?

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Dec 11, 4:15 pm, Zack wrote:
How do I go about assigning a number to a particular piece of data? To give a
simple example of what I'm trying to do, and what I envision, I'll pretend
I'm building a sandwich.

1=white
2=wheat
3=ham
4=turkey
5=roast beef
6=lettuce
7=tomato
8=mayo
9=mustard
10=cheese

So, someone could come along and build their sandwich,
ham/turkey/tomato/mayo on white bread. Excel would then recognize that
1+3+4+7+8=23
23=The American (the name of the sandwich, which I've already assigned a
variable to)

I'm using the sandwich model because its a lot simpler than what I'm
attempting to do.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -