fastest way to search for word repetitions in a large document

[Dee]

Hi what is the fastest way to search for repetition of names in a large
database (over 10,000 names)

 

[Helmut Weber]

Hi Dee,

there is no answer to that.

Depends on the structure of the data
and the available memory, in theory.

Depends on the result you want to get.

Do you want to just know,
whether there are double entries?

Or do you want to count for each name,
how often each name appears?

Do you want to know also, where it appears?

What you wan to do with the result of the search?

You may rearrange the data first,
e.g. sort them in alpabetical order,
then searching could be very fast.

Which rises the question,
what is the fastest sorting algorithm.
Depends on the memory again and the structure
of your data, which you don't know before
having analyzed them. But analyzing takes time, too.

Would you count the time needed for
rearranging the data together with
the time needed for searching?

For a practical advice:

Try putting the table in an Excel-Sheet,
and process the data in Excel.


--
Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Word is not the best application for a database, but one way to find
duplications is to enter a given name in Edit | Find (Ctrl+F) and check the
box for "Highlight all items found."

 

[Graham Mayor]

Ten thousand names in a Word document? One to a line? - Sort them into
alphabetical order and then use replace to find the duplicates - see
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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