build a column that shows parent child relationships of rows based on a column of heading numbers

[cliff_sadler]

Greetings, new to the forum.

I have a flat .csv file that represents a document with sections and sub sections that will be imported into a requirements management application.
This application understands hierarchy, and will recreate it if I can provide a mapping of parent and children rows. I cannot post an attachment, but will describe as follows:

Identifier	ParentBinding	Section	isHeading	PrimaryText
1		1	TRUE	SCOPE
2			FALSE	Text Intro
3		1.1	TRUE	Sub Heading
4		1.1.A	FALSE	Requirement 1
5		1.1.B	FALSE	Requirement 2
6		1.2	TRUE	Sub Heading
7		1.2.1	TRUE	Sub Sub Heading
8		1.2.1.A	FALSE	Requirement 3
9		1.2.1.A.1	FALSE	Sub Requirement 3

<tbody>
</tbody>

This is what I have. In order to get the application to recreate this hierarchy, I have to specify the Identifier of the Parent row in ParentBinding, as follows:

Identifier	ParentBinding	Section	isHeading	PrimaryText
1	""	1	TRUE	SCOPE
2	1		FALSE	Text Intro
3	1	1.1	TRUE	Sub Heading
4	3	1.1.A	FALSE	Requirement 1
5	3	1.1.B	FALSE	Requirement 2
6	1	1.2	TRUE	Sub Heading
7	6	1.2.1	TRUE	Sub Sub Heading
8	7	1.2.1.A	FALSE	Requirement 3
9	8	1.2.1.A.1	FALSE	Sub Requirement 3

<tbody>
</tbody>

I can hand jam the top level "" value as there's only 11 or sections per document. The lower levels, and leaf rows of requirements or information are in the thousands, so doing this by hand will be very tedious. It is true that the information rows currently do not have section identifiers, and those could be added if necessary to get the solution to work. In this case, the Section number for Identifier 2's row would also be 1.1 (child of Section 1).

I have started with a formula to count the dots in Section, and add one to get the levels of each row, and now need some way to look back to find the parent.
=(LEN(C2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2,".","")))+1

Thanks for looking!

 

[Akuini]

Try this macro.
It worked on your sample. But if it doesn't work on your real data, it means that I've made some false assumption regarding the data. In this case I need you to upload your workbook sample (without sensitive data) somewhere (maybe via dropbox.com).

Sub a928370()
Dim r As Range
Dim rr As Long
Dim x As String

rr = Range("A" & Rows.count).End(xlUp).row
For Each r In Range("C2:C" & rr)
    If InStr(1, r, ".") = 0 And Len(r) > 0 Then
      x = r.Value
      GoTo pass:
    End If

    If Len(r) = 0 Or Len(r) = 3 Then
      r.Offset(0, -1) = x
    ElseIf Len(r) > Len(r.Offset(-1, 0)) Then
      r.Offset(0, -1) = r.Offset(-1, -2)
      ElseIf Len(r) = Len(r.Offset(-1, 0)) Then
      r.Offset(0, -1) = r.Offset(-1, -1)
    End If
pass:
Next
End Sub