[SOLVED]Import data (new field) change variant cod

Hikashop version: 2.2.3
Joomla version: 2.5.17
PHP version: 5.2.17

The store has unique product code for all items. Some of them vary only in colour so I group them into one product with variants. A "non-exist" code is created for it.
e.g. There are three real product codes, A01, A02 & A03. I created a new code GA01 as the product code for the three items. On the other hand, the code A01/A02/A03 are still actively in use. They are displayed on product page as well as on invoice and email for communication and operation.

Recently, I have created a new custom field, barcode. I have them in Excel and would like to import it.
To prepare the datasheet, I export the existing hikashop data. Read it by Excel. Remove all but two columns - product_parent_id & product_code. Remove blank rows. Join (i.e. vlookup) the barcode to it so I have now three columns. I use "Import products from text area".
Barcodes are imported correctly.
However, product code of variants are unexpectedly changed in such a way that A01/A02/A03 now become GA01-1/GA01-7/GA01-11 (1,7,11 are some random number to me) that could create chaos to our operation.

It took me quite awhile to undo once when mistake was made. So, I give up the trial-and-error way. Please help.

Thank you.

Hi,
Why don't you just :
- Export your products through a CSV files
- Change the product values that you want to change
- Import your CSV file back.

Thanks a lot, I think I can do it now.

Can't do it previously because I have a lot of Chinese characters in product and category names, and Excel2000 cannot handle utf-8 well. I have not actually used Libreoffice for data processing, just find that it can do vlookup and perfectly solve this problem for me now.

BTW, seems I need to remove the first few row of category information (rows without product code) before I export to csv. Right?
The last time I failed (~30 min ago), I don't have them removed. But this is confound with some other factors so I cannot conclude.

No, You should also be able to import your data even with rows without product code .