Question

I’m in the process of looping through an Excel spreadsheet and combining all the cells into a string, which I did. Now I need to format the string with XML tags before I send it for upload, and I’m having some difficulty working the tagging into the loop correctly. It seems like it is almost working, but a few of the tags are not going in the correct place. Any help would be much appreciated.

Code:

Public file As String

Sub locate_file()

Dim sheet1_95 As String
Dim theRange As Range
Dim strVal As String
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim counterDT As Integer
Dim counterSVR As Integer
Dim counterMB As Integer

Dim outputStr As String


'prompt user for location of other excel sheet'
file = Application.GetOpenFilename("Excel Files (*.xlsx), *.xlsx")

Set wb = Workbooks.Open(file)

Dim cell As Range

'initializing the xml string'
strVal = "<root>"

Sheets("DT").Activate

counterDT = 1

For Each cell In ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Cells
'this first if-block is just excluding the few header cells from the data collection'
  If cell.Value <> "SKU" And cell.Value <> "P Number" And cell.Value <> "Month" _
     And cell.Value <> "DP Dmd" And cell.Value <> "Vertical" Then
    If cell.Column = "1" Then
      strVal = strVal & "<item><sku>" & cell.Value & "</sku>"
    ElseIf cell.Column = "2" Then strVal = strVal & "<pnum>" & cell.Value & "</pnum>"
    ElseIf cell.Column = "3" Then strVal = strVal & "<month>" & cell.Value & "</month>"
    ElseIf cell.Column = "4" Then strVal = strVal & "<forecast>" & cell.Value & "</forecast>"
    Else: strVal = strVal & "<vertical>" & cell.Value & "</vertical>"
    End If

    counterDT = counterDT + 1

    If cell.Row <> 1 Then
      If counterDT Mod 6 = 0 Then
        strVal = "<item>" & strVal & "<percent>" & category.percent(cell, "DT") & "</percent>"
       Else: End If
    Else: End If
  End If
Next

strVal = strVal & "</root>"

So basically the problem is, this loop/nested if is printing like 30 “item” tags at the very beginning of the string and I’m not sure why.

For some other information, the Excel sheet is 6 columns, and will always be 6.

Answer 1

When I’m creating xml tags, I like to move the actual tagging into a separate function. The upside is that it ensures my tags match. The downside is that you don’t “apply” the tags until the end. Tags like item and root are done after all the tags within them are done. Here’s an example:

Sub locate_file()

    Dim sVal As String
    Dim sRow As String
    Dim wb As Workbook
    Dim sh As Worksheet
    Dim lCntDT As Long
    Dim rCell As Range
    Dim rRow As Range
    Dim vaTags As Variant

    gsFile = Application.GetOpenFilename("Excel Files (*.xlsx), *.xlsx")

    If gsFile <> "False" Then
        Set wb = Workbooks.Open(gsFile)
        Set sh = wb.Sheets("DT")
        vaTags = Array("sku", "pnum", "month", "forecast", "vertical")

        lCntDT = 1

        For Each rRow In sh.UsedRange.EntireRow
            sRow = ""
            If rRow.Cells(1) <> "SKU" Then
                For Each rCell In Intersect(sh.UsedRange, rRow).Cells
                    If rCell.Column <= 4 Then
                        sRow = sRow & TagValue(rCell.Value, vaTags(rCell.Column - 1))
                    Else
                        sRow = sRow & TagValue(rCell.Value, vaTags(UBound(vaTags)))
                    End If
                Next rCell

                lCntDT = lCntDT + 1
                If rRow.Row <> 1 And lCntDT Mod 6 = 0 Then
                    sVal = sVal & TagValue("CatPct", "percent")
                End If
                sRow = TagValue(sRow, "item")
                sVal = sVal & sRow & vbNewLine
            End If
        Next rRow
        sVal = TagValue(sVal, "root")
    End If

    Debug.Print sVal

End Sub

Function TagValue(ByVal sValue As String, ByVal sTag As String) As String

    TagValue = "<" & sTag & ">" & sValue & "</" & sTag & ">"

End Function