Need all possible combinations for 18 capital cities.

abhilash_t

Hello please anyone can help me, I need to find shortest distance to travel for 18 capitals cities. I need combinations to create that logic. How to create those combinations? 

I tried by using append tool, but it is taking huge time to complete run and the size is too big. Need the simplest solution to get this. suggest me any ideas to do this. or else suggest me how can we build the logic for this by using Macros.

Take the capital cities for an example of 18 Alphabets. 

I'm attaching sample file for 4 capital cities how it needs to be appear.

Output 4 capitals.yxdb

FinnCharlton

@abhilash_t  There are 6.4 quintillion possible combinations of 18 things, I wouldn't recommend trying to make that many rows. You'll need to find an algorithmic way of doing this.

Do you want to find the shortest path that goes between all 18 cities? This is the Travelling Salesman problem, which you can read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem 

Very maths-y but there are algorithms that can solve / give very good approximate answers to this. Doesn't look easy though.

Alternatively I think the Google Maps API might have something that could help, it has an optimising waypoints feature: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/routes/opt-way#:~:text=You%20can%20have%20the%20Routes,route%20is%20the%20most%20efficient. 

Hope this is vaguely helpful and good luck!