How To Combine <> and X variable in Excel VBA? - excel

Question

I am working on excel VBA and I want all rows that does not equal to my cell value/reference (Cell E5) to be deleted but what is happening right, it deletes all rows in that sheet.
Sub DeleteNotEqualTo()
Dim ws As Worksheet
x = Range("E5").Value
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Conso")
ws.Range("B8:Z5000").AutoFilter Field:=11, Criteria1:="<> & x"
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
ws.Range("B9:Z5000").SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible).Delete
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
On Error Resume Next 'Clear Filter
ws.ShowAllData
On Error GoTo 0
End Sub

Answer 1

I'm assuming that you're setting the reference value in cell E5 (row 5) and starting from row 8 ("B8:Z5000") you crosscheck if for each record field 11 corresponds to that specific value.
I don't recommend this approach because:
when manipulating spreadsheets, you shouldn't use the auto filter. The auto filter is rather designed for visibility when you look at a spreadsheet - not for a programmatic approach. You should be aware that, even if data is filtered out of the visible range, if you'd loop through the records, the program would still take the non visible records into consideration.
by setting a static range, you are always going to be limited by the number of rows you set. You can easily use a dynamic range instead, like that your script will always crosscheck all rows that are not empty.
Option Explicit
'always recommend to use this option, it forces you to
'declare the type of every single variable
Sub DeleteNotEqualTo()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Conso")
Dim x As String 'declaring string variable, you may have to adapt
'x = Range("E5").Value you could also with the cells object, check next line
x = ws.Cells(5, 5).Value '5,5 = row 5, column 5
'now comes the loop
'you have to declare a so called iterator variable to loop, in this case "i"
'the iterator drives the loop through the records
'you also need a variable that determines the last row to be checked
'in this case you define this by checking the so called "UsedRange"
'the "UsedRange" counts from the first row that contains to the last
'check out the indicated link for more info regarding finding the last row
Dim i As Integer 'iterator variable
Dim lrow As Integer 'variable for the last row
lrow = ws.UsedRange.Rows.Count + 4 'assuming that row 5 is the first to contain a value
'now loop through the records
'here I'm assuming field 11 of your auto filter correspond to column 11 in the sheet
'important sidenote: as you're deleting rows, you have to loop bottom up
'if you loop top to bottom, the loop may skip rows that shift up
For i = lrow To 8 Step -1 'assuming that the first row to be checked is row 8
If ws.Cells(i, 11).Value = x Then
ws.Cells(i, 11).EntireRow.Delete
End If
Next i
End Sub
Here's a link with more info regarding finding the last row in a spreadsheet. Very helpful with dynamic ranges:
https://www.automateexcel.com/vba/find-last-row-column-cell/

Answer 2

What worked for me in your workbook is changing this line:
ws.Range("B8:Z5000").AutoFilter Field:=11, Criteria1:="<> & x"
to:
ws.Range("B8:Z5000").AutoFilter Field:=11, Criteria1:="<>*" & x & "*"
The presence of * wildcard changes the criteria from an exact match to a partial match. (This shouldn't have been necessary, but specifying an exact match didn't filter the range correctly for reasons I'm unsure of.)
Option Explicit
Private Sub DeleteNotEqualTo()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Conso")
Dim x As Variant
x = Range("E5").Value
ws.Range("B8:Z5000").AutoFilter Field:=11, Criteria1:="<>*" & x & "*"
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
ws.Range("B9:Z5000").SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible).Delete
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
On Error Resume Next 'Clear Filter
ws.ShowAllData
On Error GoTo 0
End Sub