Learn English – Usage of “by which”

clausesrelative-pronouns

I want to explain a technical idea – see below sentence.

After collecting the candidates and prioritizing them using one of
the above methods, the sorted candidates are stored as a list of line
numbers by which, the list give a similar neighbourhood list as
given by the r-tree (random tree) data structure.

If I say my idea briefly in another way:

by doing it that way (the way I explained above), I can get a list which is very similar to that obtained by following r-tree (another method).

My question is, if I use by which, does this clearly describe my original idea?

Best Answer

by which is legitmate phrase to use for expressing clarification, but, in your sentence, there should be no comma after it.

After collecting the candidates and prioritizing them using one of the above methods, the sorted candidates are stored as a list of line numbers by which the list give* a similar neighbourhood list as given by the r-tree (random tree) data structure.

That's long and hard to follow. I think it would be better to simply replace the by which with a full stop:

After collecting the candidates and prioritizing them using one of the above methods, the sorted candidates are stored as a list of line numbers. This list give* a neighborhood list similar to the one given by the r-tree structure.

One other suggestion: consider picking a different verb than give. I won't tell you which one (you're the domain expert), but you might try looking up synonyms for provide, construct, or return.

*denotes a verb that might be conjugated wrong.

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