use cJobject to create a unique list

Here’s something I do in many pieces of code on this site. Let’s say that you have a list of things, lets say an array or a collection and you want to create a list of unique values. The .add() method of cJobject very handily only creates a child for new values.

Private Sub cjList()
    ' use cjobject to get a unique list
    Dim a As Variant, cj As New cJobject, j As cJobject, i As Long
    a = Array("a", "b", "c", "c", "d", "d", "e", "a")
    With cj.init(Nothing)
        For i = LBound(a) To UBound(a)
            .add CStr(a(i))
        Next i
    End With
    For Each j In cj.children
        Debug.Print j.key
    Next j
End Sub

That means that the above code, very usefully produces a list of unique values in the given array – a,b,c,d,e
Organizing into families

Even, better, cJobject can organize things into families.

Private Sub cjListFamily()
    ' use cjobject to get a unique list
    Dim a As Variant, cj As New cJobject, j As cJobject, i As Long, jj As cJobject
    a = Array("smith.john", "smith.mary", "jones.fred", "jones.tom", "white.chalky", "smith.tom")
    With cj.init(Nothing)
        For i = LBound(a) To UBound(a)
            .add CStr(a(i))
        Next i
        Debug.Print .formatData
    End With
End Sub

gives us

1.smith

1.smith.john

1.smith.mary

1.smith.tom

1.jones

1.jones.fred

1.jones.tom

1.white

1.white.chalky

See How to use cJobject for more on this useful object.

Take a look at One Liners for more tips like this.

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