Excel 2010: Merge and Concatenate Rows - excel

Question

I need help.
It seems all macros I stumble upon on this website require me to write out all the rows I'm concatenating and merging. I was wondering if I could do this with a while or if statement. In the meantime,
I need to merge a table of over 21000 names (more than half of which are duplicates) but each name duplicate either has data that the original is missing, or vice versa or sometimes has different data under each column and I need to merge them. There are also like 34 (up to AF) columns.
Thanks,
Eddie
P.S. Apparently I need at least 10 reputation to post images, so message me via my account name if you want a screenshot of what I'm looking for.
P.S.S.
So after consulting with someone who helped through a comment I wrote this java-based pseudocode. Could someone help me translate it to VBA while I start to learn VBA myself? Also could they verify that it theoretically works? I'd like to have this done by the end of the day, which is why I'm asking for translation help, but I'm planning to be able to do this on my own in the near future.
//Create primary keys for comparison, using the last cell as PK for easy line finishing
//Create concatenation comparison keys (conKey) to compare cells and merge
//import new sheet and create cell location to write to new sheet.
Create PK1 = (cell) AF1
Create PK2 = (cell) AF2
Create conKey1 = (cell) A1
Create conKey2 = (cell) A2
Create newSheet = [a new sheet]
Create writeLine = A1
//Initialize while loop. This list lasts until it reaches the last person's name
While(conKey2 <= maxClient) {
//Initialize the if statement. It finds out whether merge is necessary
If(PK1.equals(PK2)) {
//Initialize while loop. This lasts until PK1 no longer equals PK2
while(PK1.equals(PK2)) {
//Initialize if loop. It checks to see if the values are not equal. if so, it concatenates into conKey1
if(!conKey1.equals(conKey2)) {
conKey1 = concatenate(conKey1,", ",conKey2)
}
//Export cell to writeLine of newSheet. Shift everything to the right. verify writeLine equals conKey1
//Clear the doubled cell for safe keeping and to assist us in closing the while loop.
exportTo(newSheet.writeLine, conKey1)
conKey1.shiftsRight
writeLine.coordinates(equals(conKey1))
conKey2 = ""
conKey2.shiftsRight
}
//After this while loop is finished, delete the blank row.
//coordinates of PK1 and PK2 should remain the same at this point
deleteRow(PK2)
//If the merge was not necessary it will skip all of that above and shift each variable down a row.
} else {
PK1.nextRow
PK2.nextRow
conKey1.nextRow
conKey2.nextRow
writeLine.nextRow
}

Answer 1

If SQL is a solution and MAX value of all values is an accepted value... then using an ODBC, a defined table and a self reference may work..
Select Formulas then define name
Define the range of existing data
Select where you want the combined results to display (for example Sheet 2 (A1) instead of sheet 1)
Save the workbook
Select data then from other sources.
select data connection wizard
Select ODBC DSN
Select Excel Files
Find the file saved
Now select the new table (the one defined in step 1)
and complete the wizard.
Go to data menu
Properties
click connection properties button
select definition tab.
modify command text to fit needs
It takes data from sheet 1 such as this:
And provided the wizard is completed (steps 5-11) and then the SQL updated in step 16 you'll get something like
.
This is the command text I used. since it's SQL it can be altered to fit your needs max, concat, whatever
Select firstName, MiddleName, LastName, max(attrib1), max(attrib2), max(attrib3), max(attrib4)
From `yourPath&FileName.xlsx`.`YourDefinedName`
GROUP BY firstName, MiddleName, LastName