VBA Macro to compare cell values

Question

I have problem in comparing cells with different value and give what ever is missing in one cell into third cell.

Example:

I am trying to match two cells:

cell 1 (abcd ) & cell 2 (cab) both have " abc" in common and I want the macro to show

missing value "d" to be shown in cell 3.

Answer 1

Consider:

Public Function WhatsMissing(Big As String, Little As String) As String
    Dim V As String
    V = Big
    For i = 1 To Len(Little)
        ch = Mid(Little, i, 1)
        V = Replace(V, ch, "")
    Next i
    WhatsMissing = V
End Function

So if A1 contains abcdefg and B1 contains def then =WhatsMissing(A1,B1) would display:

abcg

Answer 2

If your values will have spaces in them for sure, then you can split them with the Split function and put them into arrays (or dictionary objects) and compare the two dictionaries for differences.

Here's a simple example:

Option Explicit

Sub getDifferences()
    Dim s1() As String
    Dim s2() As String

    s1 = Split(Range("A1").Value, " ") ' a b c d
    s2 = Split(Range("B1").Value, " ") ' c a b

    Dim d1 As Object
    Dim d2 As Object

    Set d1 = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
    Set d2 = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

    ' collect the values from cell 1
    Dim i As Long
    For i = 0 To UBound(s1)
        d1.Add s1(i), i
    Next

    ' collect the values from cell 2
    For i = 0 To UBound(s2)
        d2.Add s2(i), i
    Next


    Dim missing As Object
    Set missing = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
    Dim sKey As Variant

    ' check missing items from first cell to second
    For Each sKey In d1.keys()
        If (d2.exists(sKey) = False) Then
            missing.Add sKey, 1
        End If
    Next

    ' check missing items from second cell to first
    For Each sKey In d2.keys()
        If (d1.exists(sKey) = False) Then
            missing.Add sKey, 1
        End If
    Next

    ' display the missing items between the two
    For Each sKey In missing.keys()
        Debug.Print sKey
    Next


End Sub

If cell 1 had: abcd

And cell 2 had: cabe

This will print out: de

Hope this helps