Thanks a lot Markus for finding a solution to this.
Here are some slightly more detailed instructions for the benefit of OpenOffice Basic newbies like myself. This applies to version 3.1:
Tools -> Macros -> Organize Macros -> OpenOffice.org Basic...
Now select from the explorer tree where you want your function live,
e.g. it can be in your own macro library (My Macros / Standard) or
stored directly in the current spreadsheet.
Now enter a new Macro name and click New to open the OO.org Basic IDE. You'll see a REM
statement and some stub Sub definitions. Delete all that and replace
it with:
Function STRJOIN(range, Optional delimiter As String, Optional before As String, Optional after As String)
Dim row, col As Integer
Dim result, cell As String
result = ""
If IsMissing(delimiter) Then
delimiter = ","
End If
If IsMissing(before) Then
before = ""
End If
If IsMissing(after) Then
after = ""
End If
If NOT IsMissing(range) Then
If NOT IsArray(range) Then
result = before & range & after
Else
For row = LBound(range, 1) To UBound(range, 1)
For col = LBound(range, 2) To UBound(range, 2)
cell = range(row, col)
If cell <> 0 AND Len(Trim(cell)) <> 0 Then
If result <> "" Then
result = result & delimiter
End If
result = result & before & range(row, col) & after
End If
Next
Next
End If
End If
STRJOIN = result
End Function
The above code has some slight improvements from Markus' original:
Doesn't start with a delimiter when the first cell in the range is empty.
Allows optional choice of the delimiter (defaults to ","), and the
strings which go before and after each non-blank entry in the range
(default to "").
I renamed it STRJOIN since "join" is the typical name of this
function in several popular languages, such as Perl, Python, and Ruby.
Variables all lowercase
Now save the macro, go to the cell where you want the join to appear,
and type:
=STRJOIN(C3:C50)
replacing C3:C50 with the range of strings you want to join.
To customise the delimiter, instead use something like:
=STRJOIN(C3:C50; " / ")
If you wanted to join a bunch of email addresses, you could use:
=STRJOIN(C3:C50; ", "; "<"; ">")
and the result would be something like
<[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
