Remove Duplicates in any order

**doctorcpu** · 08-12-2009, 11:17 PM

Hi,

I'm trying to generate a unique list from a column and count the duplicates deleteing them if found shifting up. I need to count base on the numbers in each cell being found in anyother cell in any order and the delete the duplicates by shifting the remaining numbers up. Here is a sample list
10-2-3-5
1-12-3-10
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-5
1-2-3-6
1-2-3-7
1-2-4-3
1-2-4-5
1-2-4-6
1-2-5-3
1-2-5-4
1-2-5-7
1-2-6-4
1-2-6-5
1-2-7-3
1-2-7-5
1-2-7-6
1-2-8-4
1-3-2-4
1-3-2-5
1-3-2-6
1-3-2-7
1-3-2-9
1-3-4-2
1-3-4-5
1-3-4-6
1-3-4-7
1-3-5-2
1-3-5-4
1-3-5-7
1-3-6-10
1-3-6-2
1-3-6-4
1-3-6-5
1-3-6-7
1-3-7-2
1-3-7-4
1-3-7-6
1-4-2-3
1-4-2-5
1-4-3-2
1-4-3-5
1-4-3-6
1-4-3-7
1-4-5-3
1-4-6-2
1-4-7-3
1-4-8-2
1-4-9-2
1-4-9-5
1-5-2-3
1-5-2-6
1-5-2-8
1-5-3-6
1-5-3-8
1-5-4-2
1-5-4-3
1-5-4-6
1-5-6-3
1-5-6-4
1-5-6-7
1-5-6-8
1-5-8-4
1-6-2-3
1-6-2-4
1-6-3-2
1-6-3-5
1-6-4-2
1-6-4-3
1-6-4-7
1-6-5-2
1-6-7-5
1-7-2-4
1-7-2-6
1-7-2-8
1-7-3-2
1-7-3-4
1-7-3-8
1-7-4-3
1-7-5-2
1-7-5-4
1-7-6-4
1-7-6-5
1-9-5-2
2-1-3-4
2-1-3-5
2-1-3-6
2-1-3-7
2-1-4-3
2-1-4-5
2-1-4-6
2-1-4-7
2-1-5-3
2-1-5-4
2-1-5-6
2-1-6-4
2-3-1-5
2-3-1-6
2-3-4-1
2-3-4-5
2-3-4-6
2-3-5-1
2-3-5-4
2-3-5-6
2-3-6-5
2-3-7-1
2-3-7-4
2-3-7-5
2-4-11-5
2-4-1-3
2-4-1-5
2-4-1-6
2-4-3-1
2-4-3-6
2-4-5-1
2-5-1-3
2-5-1-4
2-5-1-6
2-5-3-1
2-5-4-1
2-5-7-1
2-6-1-3
2-6-3-1
2-6-3-10
2-6-3-4
2-6-5-3
2-7-1-10
2-7-1-5
2-9-6-4
3-1-2-4
3-1-2-5
3-1-2-6
3-1-4-2
3-1-4-5
3-1-4-6
3-1-5-2
3-1-5-4
3-1-6-2

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

**Leith Ross** · 08-12-2009, 11:30 PM

Hello Doctorcpu,

Do each of the values shown occupy a single cell? For example, A1 = "10-2-3-5", A2 = "1-12-3-10", etc. Would "10-2-3-5" and "10-3-2-5" be considered a repeat?

**doctorcpu** · 08-13-2009, 10:02 AM

Yes to both questions.

Thanks

**doctorcpu** · 08-16-2009, 12:20 AM

Any ideas to get me started on solving this problem?

**DonkeyOte** · 08-16-2009, 03:12 AM

I think you can do it yes but I would probably ask for a little more info, specifically:

where are the values stored ?

are there values adjacent to these values (to right) ?

which version of XL are you running ?

If you could post a sample file which demonstrates your actual setup that would be helpful.

My instinct would be such that you split the values based on hyphen and reorder the digits in ascending order - thereby providing you with a simple / normalised string against which you can apply a standard COUNTIF
(ie check to see if up to any given point the present row is the first instance of the given combination of digits)