Open Office Spreadsheet (Calc) - Concatenate text cells with delimiters - openoffice.org

Question

I am using Open Office's spreadsheet program and am trying to concatenate several text cells together with delimeters. For example, suppose I have the cells below:
+--------+
| cell 1 |
+--------+
| cell 2 |
+--------+
| cell 3 |
+--------+
| cell 4 |
+--------+
| cell 5 |
+--------+
I would like to concatenate them with delimiters so that the result is in one cell like this one:
+----------------------------------------------+
| (cell 1),(cell 2),(cell 3),(cell 4),(cell 5) |
+----------------------------------------------+
My first thought was to try and make a macro or something, but I don't think open office supports those. Any ideas?

Answer 1

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
<foo#bar.com>, <baz#qux.org>, <another#email.address>, <and#so.on>

Answer 2

Well, after a lot more searching and experimenting, I found you can make your own functions in calc. This is a function I made that does what I want:
Function STRCONCAT(range)
Dim Row, Col As Integer
Dim Result As String
Dim Temp As String
Result = ""
Temp = ""
If NOT IsMissing(range) Then
If NOT IsArray(range) Then
Result = "(" & range & ")"
Else
For Row = LBound(range, 1) To UBound(range, 1)
For Col = LBound(range, 2) To UBound(range, 2)
Temp = range(Row, Col)
Temp = Trim(Temp)
If range(Row, Col) <> 0 AND Len(Temp) <> 0 Then
If(NOT (Row = 1 AND Col = 1)) Then Result = Result & ", "
Result = Result & "(" & range(Row, Col) & ") "
End If
Next
Next
End If
End If
STRCONCAT = Result
End Function

Answer 3

Ever so often I'd enjoy the ease and quickness of replace & calculation Options as well as in general the quick handling & modifying Options, when once again sitting in front of a dumped-file-lists or whatsoever.
I never understood why they didn't include such an essential function right from the start, really.
It's based on Adam's script, but with the extension to swap CONCAT from horizontal to vertical, while still keeping the delimiters in order.
Function CONCAT2D(Optional range, Optional delx As String, Optional dely As String, _
Optional xcell As String, Optional cellx As String, _
Optional swop As Integer)
Dim xy(1), xyi(1), s(1) As Integer
Dim out, cell, del, dxy(1) As String
'ReDim range(2, 1) 'Gen.RandomMatrix 4 Debugging
'For i = LBound(range, 1) To UBound(range, 1)
' For j = LBound(range, 2) To UBound(range, 2)
' Randomize
' range(i,j) = Int((100 * Rnd) )
' Next
'Next
out = ""
If IsMissing(delx) Then : delx = "," : End If
If IsMissing(dely) Then : dely = delx() : End If
If IsMissing(xcell) Then : xcell = "" : End If
If IsMissing(cellx) Then : cellx = xcell() : End If
If IsMissing(swop) Then : swop = 0 : End If
dxy(0) = delx() : dxy(1) = dely()
xyi(0) = 1 : xyi(1) = 2
If swop = 0 Then : s(0) = 0 : s(1) = 1
Else s(0) = 1 : s(1) = 0 : End If
If NOT IsMissing(range) Then
If NOT IsArray(range) _
Then : out = xcell & range & cellx
Else del = delx
For xy(s(0)) = LBound(range, xyi(s(0))) To UBound(range, xyi(s(0))
For xy(s(1)) = LBound(range, xyi(s(1))) To UBound(range, xyi(s(1))
cell = range(xy(0), xy(1))
If cell <> 0 AND Len(Trim(cell)) <> 0 _
Then : If out <> "" Then : out = out & del : End If
out = out & xcell & cell & cellx
del = dxy(s(0))
End If
Next : del = dxy(s(1))
Next
End If
Else out = "ERR"
End If
CONCAT2D = out
End Function