Crispo - Excel Challenge 51 2025

excel-challenges
weekly-exercises
Easy Sunday Excel Challenge
Published

December 21, 2025

Illustration for Crispo - Excel Challenge 51 2025

Challenge Description

Easy Sunday Excel Challenge

⭐ ⭐Extract the City Name i.e. name after the 5 digit postal code

Solutions

library(tidyverse)
library(readxl)

path <- "2025-12-21/Challenge 87.xlsx"
input <- read_excel(path, range = "B2:B8")
test <- read_excel(path, range = "D2:D8")

result = input %>%
  mutate(extracted = str_extract(Address, "(?<=\\d{5} )[^,]+"))

all.equal(result$extracted, test$City)
# [1] TRUE

  • Logic:

    • Reads the workbook range needed for the challenge

    • Builds the intermediate helper columns that drive the final answer

    • Uses direct text-pattern extraction instead of manual cleanup

  • Strengths:

    • The R solution stays compact and mirrors the workbook logic closely.

  • Areas for Improvement:

    • The code assumes the workbook layout and named ranges remain stable.

  • Gem:

    • The best part of the solution is choosing a tidy intermediate shape before producing the final answer.
import pandas as pd
import re

path = "2025-12-21/Challenge 87.xlsx"
input = pd.read_excel(path, usecols="B", skiprows=1, nrows=6)
test = pd.read_excel(path, usecols="D", skiprows=1, nrows=6)

def extract_city(address):
    match = re.search(r"(?<=\d{5} )[^,]+", str(address))
    return match.group(0) if match else None

input['extracted'] = input.iloc[:, 0].apply(extract_city)

print(input['extracted'].equals(test['City'])) # True

  • Logic:

    • Reads the workbook range needed for the challenge

    • Uses direct text-pattern extraction instead of manual cleanup

  • Strengths:

    • The Python version keeps the same rule in a direct pandas-oriented workflow.

  • Areas for Improvement:

    • As with the R version, any workbook layout change would require small adjustments.

  • Gem:

    • The implementation stays close to the stated challenge instead of adding unnecessary complexity.

Difficulty Level

This task is moderate:

  • It combines familiar Excel-style logic with at least one non-trivial reshape, grouping, or parsing step.

  • The answer depends on getting the output layout exactly right.