where exactly i shlould place INDIRECT() in excel? - excel-formula

Question

I have a named range by name 'AlgeriaBchar'. (Algeria-> countryname and Bchar-> statename)
I use constraint on city dropdown as content in country dropdown + state dropdown (i.e. E7 + F7).
But as we can see in img staename is 'Béchar' which i need to remove char 'é' as it doesnt fit in a-z, A-Z, 0-9.
I also need to remove any blank spaces, hiphns, square brackets, apostrophy marks in country and state dropdown contents
I m not getting in which sequence I should put these fucntions to get it to 'AlgeriaBchar'
For better understanding I provided indentation to data validation fucntion in excel.
I'll be putting this fucntion in city dropdown's validaity constraint.
I may need to evaluate each character in a string which will need for loop. MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) gives me only 1st chracter. How can I loop it till the length of the string.
can anyone suggest me.
=IF(
NOT(
AND( CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) >=65 , CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) <=90 )
)
AND(
NOT(
AND( CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) >=97 , CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) <=122 )
)
)
AND(
NOT(
AND( CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) >=48 , CODE( MID( E7, 1 ,1 ) ) <=57 )
)
)
, SUBSTITUTE( E7, MID( E7, 1 ,1 ), "" ) ,""
)
INDIRECT(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(
SUBSTITUTE(UPPER($E$7)," ","")
,"-","")
,"'","")
,"[","")
,"]","")
)
)

Answer 1

You may want to use a macro for that. Consider this one (based on this article from extendoffice.com)
1) Hold down the Alt + F11 keys in Excel, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
2) Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.
Function StripAccent(thestring As String)
Dim A As String * 1
Dim B As String * 1
Dim i As Integer
Const AccChars = "ŠŽšžŸÀÁÂÃÄÅÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖÙÚÛÜÝàáâãäåçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöùúûüýÿ-[]' "
For i = 1 To Len(AccChars)
A = Mid(AccChars, i, 1)
thestring = Replace(thestring, A, "")
Next
StripAccent = thestring
End Function
Function TrimmedConcat(A As String, B As String)
TrimmedConcat = StripAccent(A) & StripAccent(B)
End Function
Then in your document, click in a cell, and use TrimmedConcat as if it was a normal function, selecting the country name as the first argument and the city name as the second.
In your example =TrimmedConcat(E7,F7)
I hope that helps!