Iterate over defined lists in excel - excel

Question

I have an excel spreadsheet, with two defined lists. Call them colours{red, green, blue} and types{1, 2}
I have a function to calculate for each object, so finally, I have a table that looks like
colour type result
red 1 100
red 2 200
green 1 150
green 2 250
blue 1 155
blue 2 255
But obviously I wrote that by hand. Without using a VB script, is there any way I can get excel to fill in the colour and type cells to enumerate the whole set?
Thanks

Answer 1

Here's one VBA approach - you can pass in as many lists (by range) as you like and it will create all the combinations and copy them to where you specify.
Sub tester()
'First range is where to place the results, next ranges
' are the lists to be combined
SqlPermutate Sheet1.Range("E1"), Sheet1.Range("A1:A20"), _
Sheet1.Range("B1:B5"), Sheet1.Range("C1:C10")
End Sub
Sub SqlPermutate(rngDestination As Range, ParamArray ranges() As Variant)
Dim oConn As Object, oRS As Object
Dim sPath, i As Long, srcWb As Workbook
Dim sSQL As String, flds As String, tbls As String
'check source ranges are in a saved workbook...
Set srcWb = ranges(0).Parent.Parent
If srcWb.Path <> "" Then
sPath = srcWb.FullName
Else
MsgBox "Workbook being queried must be saved first..."
Exit Sub
End If
For i = LBound(ranges) To UBound(ranges)
flds = flds & IIf(Len(flds) > 0, ",", "") & Chr(65 + i) & ".*"
tbls = tbls & IIf(Len(tbls) > 0, ",", "") & _
RngNm(ranges(i)) & " " & Chr(65 + i)
Next i
sSQL = "select " & flds & " from " & tbls
Debug.Print sSQL
Set oConn = CreateObject("adodb.connection")
Set oRS = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
oConn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source='" & sPath & "';" & _
"Extended Properties='Excel 12.0;HDR=no;IMEX=1';"
oRS.Open sSQL, oConn
If Not oRS.EOF Then
rngDestination.CopyFromRecordset oRS
Else
MsgBox "No records found"
End If
oRS.Close
oConn.Close
End Sub
Function RngNm(r) As String
RngNm = "[" & r.Parent.Name & "$" & _
r.Address(False, False) & "]"
End Function