How to compare each cell with each other in MS Excel? - excel

Question

In large dataset - 250 rows and 1000 columns I need to compare each value in cell with each other in one column and iterate over all column. Heres simplified example of source data:
And this is what I need (formatting not necessary and 2 empty rows not necessary) - if match if found "1" is produced, if no match "2" is produced, if one or both were N/A - "3" is produced:
Comparison should only be "one sided" for example Terry and Joey is the same as Joey and Terry, thus further comparison of already compared pairs is not needed.
Is it possible to do this in Excel 2016 or are there better tools for this?
My thanks to all.

Answer 1

This alternative is a bit complex, but we all solve problems like this differently. If it helps you, please feel free to use it. If not, I can understand since some of these techniques are not particularly common and the resulting formula is a bit unreadable. I did it this way so that I would be able to organize the rows better and read the matching/unmatching indicators more easily. I started by creating a helper column rather than repeat the rows for each individual so that each row shows the two names being compared. This is the formula I used to compare using B8's information is:
=IF(OR(INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A",INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A"),3,IF(INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)<>INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE),2,1))
I am going to try to explain the formula I used as follows:
Without using the helper column, the basic formula for cell B8 is this:
=IF(OR(B$2="N/A",B3="N/A"),3,IF(B$2<>B3,2,1))
and this would work for the range B8:H11. However, when I skip down to B13, the formula would need to change to:
=IF(OR(B$3="N/A",B4="N/A"),3,IF(B$3<>B4,2,1))
and this would work for the range B13:H15. Likewise B17, and B20 would be:
=IF(OR(B$4="N/A",B5="N/A"),3,IF(B$4<>B5,2,1))
=IF(OR(B$5="N/A",B6="N/A"),3,IF(B$5<>B6,2,1))
for their respective ranges. I shy away from formulas where I have to remember what I need to change for each section (heaven forbid I should write any notes or read them if I did).
In order to do this, I used the person column (A) and my helper column (I) to determine which rows to compare.
MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0)
gives the row of the person value in the Chart from A1:H6 in the comparison
MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0)
gives the row of the helper value in the Chart from A1:H6 in the comparison
Since the data being compared is always in the same column, I just use COLUMN() to determine which column to use.
In cell B8, MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0) will tell me it is row 2 and MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0) will tell me it is row 3. Thus, I want to use the values in Row 2, Column 2 compared against Row 3, Column 2.
To tell Excel to compare Row 2, Column 2 against Row 3, Column 2 is fairly simple, but creating a formula that you can copy from cell to cell without having to modify it each time is not as easy, since each section is a bit different and there could be blank rows in between sections. What I did was to use indirect cell notation using "R1C1" syntax rather than the more common "A1" cell referencing.
In other words in column B8 this:
INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)
gives the value in Row 2 (for Terry), Column 2 and
INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)
gives the value in Row 3 (for Joey), Column 2 and
In both of the above, I am concatenating and R and a C to the numbers returned by the MATCH() and COLUMN() functions and using the FALSE parameter to tell Excel to treat the concatenated result as "R1C1" notation. In other words, this:
OR(INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($I8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A",INDIRECT("R"&MATCH($A8,$A$1:$A$6,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A")
translates to this:
OR(R2C2="N/A",R3C2="N/A")
I realize that the helper column is a burden you did not ask for and I realize that the formula is overly complicated, but I can freely copy this formula to any column that has the two names and it will do a comparison for that day of the week.
Here is a picture of what I am describing:
Added comments
Just to carry the above a bit further, suppose you had a Sheet1 which had the rows of data to be compared and suppose this were limited to 250 rows with the same 7 columns (rather than 1000). I could create another sheet similar to the above along with another helper cell (I put it in A1) to automatically populate the person column and the helper column like this:
New Helper Cell value: 1 (essentially saying to start at the top). This would populate Cell A2 with the following formula:
=IFERROR(IF(INDEX(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,NUMBERVALUE(RIGHT($A$1,3)+ROW()))=0,"",INDEX(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,NUMBERVALUE(RIGHT($A$1,3)+ROW()))),"")
Basically this is just this formula:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,NUMBERVALUE(RIGHT($A$1,3)+ROW()))
but is checking first to see if it results in zero and then is replacing it with blanks if it is an error. Copying this cell down Column A will populate that column with the names starting at the first row after the data row specified by A. If you have more headings or other data you would need to add additional amountst to the +ROW() portion in both occurrences in the formula. Column I gets populated siimilarly with this:
=IF(A2="","",INDEX(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,NUMBERVALUE(LEFT($A$1,3)+1)))
However, this value does not vary from row to row.
Now that the helper columns are populated, you can populate the formula a bit differently from the above (which had used the same sheet) for example in B2:
=IF($A2="","",IF(OR(INDIRECT("Sheet1!R"&MATCH($I2,Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A",INDIRECT("Sheet1!R"&MATCH($A2,Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)="N/A"),3,IF(INDIRECT("Sheet1!R"&MATCH($I2,Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE)<>INDIRECT("Sheet1!R"&MATCH($A2,Sheet1!$A$1:$A$250,0)&"C"&COLUMN(),FALSE),2,1)))
The main difference from the first formula is the off sheet references to "Sheet1" that were added and the extension of the formula to cover 250 rows.
Here is a picture with Cell A1 set to 1:
Here is a picture with Cell A1 set to 3:
Using this, your Sheet1 values remain where they are and you can create a generic comparison sheet to compare the values of various rows of Sheet1. These can be dynamically built by changing the value in A1 or you can create dozens of similar sheets, each differing by the value in A1.
Not sure if any of this makes sense.
Good Luck

Answer 2

Just use a function like this(exemple for cell B4):
=IF(B3=B2;1;IF(B3="N/A";3;2))
Print of it working
Do it for each line and just drag it from the begining to the end.
EDIT: You should do an or in the 2nd if to make surre neither is "N/A"
=IF(OR(B3="N/A";B2="N/A";3;IF(B3=B2);1;2))