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In an Excel array formula - when I try to return the first TRUE value from an array using the IF formula, it works as expected if TRUE is the first entry in the array, but not if TRUE appears later
For example, this works and returns "a"
=IF({TRUE,FALSE},{"a","b"})
But this does not work as I would expect - and returns FALSE
=IF({FALSE,TRUE},{"a","b"})
What is the right way to get to "b" in this case?
EDIT
The question I have is - if I have a "logical condition" array with exactly one TRUE value, how do I return the value corresponding to the TRUE.
With numeric values, I can use the SMALL function, for example -
=SMALL(IF({FALSE,TRUE},{1,4}),1)
This returns 4. Is there something equivalent that I can use if I have {"a", "b"} instead of {1, 4} above.
Lots of ways:
with O360:
=XLOOKUP(TRUE,{FALSE,TRUE},{"a","b"})
earlier versions:
=HLOOKUP(TRUE,{FALSE,TRUE;"a","b"},2,0)
=INDEX({"a","b"},MATCH(TRUE,{FALSE,TRUE},0))
All of the methods that I've used have 2 answer values (True or False).
How can I get the following with a formula?
If A1=1 then it's 11, if A1=2 the answer is 22, if A1=3 then it's 33, if A1=4 it's 44.
If the value your are evaluating is in cell A1, then the nested function would be as follows:
IF(A1=1,11,IF(A1=2,22,IF(A1=3,33,IF(A1=4,44,""))))
I put the 2 double commas at the end so the formula returns a blank instead of false.
I don't know if that's what you are asking about, but you can make multiple (nested) IF statements in one. For example:
IF(1=2;TRUE;IF(2=2;TRUE;FALSE))
You just put another IF in the FALSE part of IF statement. If that's not it, can you give a piece of the statement you tried and precise more what do you want?
=IF(AND(INT(A1)=A1,A1<=4,A1>=1),A1*11,"")
Now the above works for the condition you placed in your example, however if one were to go by your title alone you have a couple of options you could go with.
You first Option would be nested IF statements. Like you said each IF function has TRUE or FALSE. The trick is to put another IF function in for the TRUE result and another in for the FALSE results
IF(CHECK1, IF(CHECK2, TRUE2, FALSE2),IF(CHECK3, TRUE3, FALSE3))
The above give 4 potential results based on only 3 checks. Another option would be to do a check and supply a value for a TRUE result and another IF for a false result. Keep repeating the process. Conversely you could go the same route flipping TRUE FALSE option. It might look something like this:
IF(CHECK1, TRUE1, IF(CHECK2, TRUE2, IF(CHECK3, TRUE3, FALSE3)))
FALSE3 would be the result of all previous checks failing.
So for your case, your nested IF could look like (assuming the only valid entries are 1, 2, 3 and 4):
IF(A1=1,11,IF(A1,2,22,IF(A1=3,33,44)))
OR
IF(ISODD(A1),IF(A1=1,11,33),IF(A1=2,22,44))
and there are other options to work through the logic. there are also other checks you could be doing and results being displayed if your entries in A1 were not limited to the integers 1,2,3 and 4.
Now because you example is using the sequential integers 1,2,3 and 4 you could also use the CHOOSE function. Alternatively if you can make your criteria evaluate to sequential integers stating at 1 the CHOOSE function would work as well. Supply choose with an integer as the first argument and it will return the corresponding argument in the list that follows
CHOOSE(ARGUMENT,RESULT1, RESULT2,...,RESULTn-1, RESULTn)
In your case it would look something like:
CHOOSE(A1,11,22,33,44)
If you can not get sequential numbers for whatever reason and the gap is numbers is small and you are in the low integer count, you could leave a gap in results by providing "", or 0). lets say you has 1,3 and 4 as potential arguments, then your choose might look like:
CHOOSE(A1,11,"",33,44)
=IF(A1<>"",INDEX({11;22;33;44},A1),"")
=IF(AND(ISNUMBER(A1),A1<=4),A1*11,"")
In excel, what's the best way to check if a list of strings in a column start or end with another list of strings?
Example:
First List:
Reddy
CodeRed
Zabby
KaBlueY
Second List: Red, Blue, Blop, Blurp
The solution should return:
Reddy - TRUE (because it contains 'red' from the second list in the start or end position)
CodeRed - TRUE (because it contains 'red' from the second list in the start or end position)
Zabby - FALSE (because it does not contain any strings from the second list in the start or end position.
KaBlueY - FALSE (because it does not contain any strings from the second list in the start or end position.
Edited Answer:
The question has been changed, and so should my answer to make it current:
If the second argument of SEARCH function is a range, you may use this formula.
Solution #4: Check if any of the strings in a range contain a substring
=OR(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("red",range)))*1
Result: 1
=OR(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("redX",range)))*1
Result: 0
Same explanation as Solution #1 below but instead of searching for a substring in a "parent" string, it searches multiple strings and is made possible by creating an array formula and can only be done by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER. Check for {} around your formula in the formula bar to make sure that you created an array formula.
Since there are multiple results in an array formula, wrap it with OR function to see if any of the strings in a range contain the string that you're looking for. Finally, simply multiply it by 1 to convert the resulting boolean values to its numerical values.
Hope it helps!
Original Answer:
There are number of ways to do this. You may use SEARCH or SUBSTITUTE function, to parse the string, in combination with other functions such as those that returns boolean values, to check the expected result against the return value of the former. Finally, to convert boolean values into its numerical values, simply multiply it by 1.
Here are some examples to get you started:
Solution #1
=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("red","reddy"))*1
Result: 1
=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("redX","reddy"))*1
Result: 0
If it is able to find the substring red within the "parent" string reddy, the SEARCH function returns a number—the position of the substring you're looking for. Otherwise, like in the case of redX, it returns #VALUE!. To hide the ugly #VALUE! error message as well as to show a more appropriate message than simply showing the position of the substring, wrap it with ISNUMBER function to return TRUE or FALSE. And if you'd like to convert it to its numerical values, multiply it by 1.
Solution #2
=IF(SUBSTITUTE("reddy","red","anyText")="reddy",FALSE,TRUE)*1
Result: 1
=IF(SUBSTITUTE("reddy","redX","anyText")="reddy",FALSE,TRUE)*1
Result: 0
Here, the resulting string from the SUBSTITUTE function is compared against the "parent" string by wrapping it with IF function, which in turn returns a boolean value that can be converted into a numerical value by multiplying it by 1.
Solution #3
=NOT(EXACT("reddy",SUBSTITUTE("reddy","red","anyText")))*1
Result: 1
=NOT(EXACT("reddy",SUBSTITUTE("reddy","redX","anyText")))*1
Result: 0
This is just a variation of the formula presented in Solution #2. It uses EXACT function to check if the resulting string from the SUBSTITUTE function is exactly the same as the old string (which I called the "parent string" in Solution #1). If it is exactly the same, it means nothing were substituted because it didn't find the string you're looking for. Since EXACT function returns TRUE if the two strings are an exact match, which means nothing has changed, which also means, it didn't find the string you're looking for, you need to reverse the result by wrapping it with NOT function. Again, if you'd like to convert it to its numerical form, simply multiply it by 1.
Hope it helps!
References:
SEARCH
ISNUMBER
OR
SUBSTITUTE
IF
EXACT
NOT
I have this IF statement:
=IF(AG3<=7,"1",IF(15<=AG3<=21,"2",IF(22<=AG3<=28,"3",IF(29<=AG3<=35,"4",IF(36<=AG3<=42,"5",IF(43<=AG3<=49,"6",IF(50<=AG3<=56,"7")))))))
but either it gives me a 1 or "FALSE"
All the values are within the ranges and should be showing various numbers
Excel does not use 50<=AG3<=56. The way Excel will read this is it will resolve AG3<=56 which will resolve to TRUE or FALSE which have the values of 1 and 0 respectively. And since 50 is greater than both those it will always return FALSE and since you did not specify a final false argument Excel returns FALSE
It needs to be AND(50<=AG3, AG3<=56)
Also "1" returns a number as text and not a true number, remove the quotes.
So:
=IF(AG3<=7,1,IF(AND(15<=AG3,AG3<=21),2,IF(AND(22<=AG3,AG3<=28),3,IF(AND(29<=AG3,AG3<=35),4,IF(AND(36<=AG3,AG3<=42),5,IF(AND(43<=AG3,AG3<=49),6,IF(AND(50<=AG3,AG3<=56),7,"Value not in specs")))))))
But based on your criteria you could use:
=IF(OR(AND(AG3>=8,AG3<=14),AG3>56),"Not to Spec",MATCH(AG3,{-1E+99,15,22,29,36,43,40}))
Don't use Nested IFs if you can avoid it. Instead, use a banded VLOOKUP: it's many times more efficient, and a heck of a lot simpler to troubleshoot. Something like the answer here:
Excel IF statement Not returning the appropriate Value
In your case, here's your lookup list:
Note that since you haven't specified what should happen between 8 and 14 or over 57 I have simply put =NA() in those bands.
And here's the result for a range of numbers:
...and here's the formula that was used in the second column of that second table (using table notation):
=VLOOKUP([#Value],Table3,2,TRUE)
I have an interesting challenge - I need to run a check on the following data in Excel:
| A - B - C - D |
|------|------|------|------|
| 36 | 0 | 0 | x |
| 0 | 600 | 700 | x |
|___________________________|
You'll have to excuse my wonderfully bad ASCII art. So I need the D column (x) to run a check against the adjacent cells, then convert the values if necessary. Here's the criteria:
If column B is greater than 0, everything works great and I can get coffee. If it doesn't meet that requirement, then I need to convert A1 according to a table - for example, 32 = 1420 and place into D. Unfortunately, there is no relationship between A and what it needs to convert to, so creating a calculation is out of the question.
A case or switch statement would be perfect in this scenario, but I don't think it is a native function in Excel. I also think it would be kind of crazy to chain a bunch of =IF() statements together, which I did about four times before deciding it was a bad idea (story of my life).
Sounds like a job for VLOOKUP!
You can put your 32 -> 1420 type mappings in a couple of columns somewhere, then use the VLOOKUP function to perform the lookup.
Without reference to the original problem (which I suspect is long since solved), I very recently discovered a neat trick that makes the Choose function work exactly like a select case statement without any need to modify data. There's only one catch: only one of your choose conditions can be true at any one time.
The syntax is as follows:
CHOOSE(
(1 * (CONDITION_1)) + (2 * (CONDITION_2)) + ... + (N * (CONDITION_N)),
RESULT_1, RESULT_2, ... , RESULT_N
)
On the assumption that only one of the conditions 1 to N will be true, everything else is 0, meaning the numeric value will correspond to the appropriate result.
If you are not 100% certain that all conditions are mutually exclusive, you might prefer something like:
CHOOSE(
(1 * TEST1) + (2 * TEST2) + (4 * TEST3) + (8 * TEST4) ... (2^N * TESTN)
OUT1, OUT2, , OUT3, , , , OUT4 , , <LOTS OF COMMAS> , OUT5
)
That said, if Excel has an upper limit on the number of arguments a function can take, you'd hit it pretty quickly.
Honestly, can't believe it's taken me years to work it out, but I haven't seen it before, so figured I'd leave it here to help others.
EDIT: Per comment below from #aTrusty:
Silly numbers of commas can be eliminated (and as a result, the choose statement would work for up to 254 cases) by using a formula of the following form:
CHOOSE(
1 + LOG(1 + (2*TEST1) + (4*TEST2) + (8*TEST3) + (16*TEST4),2),
OTHERWISE, RESULT1, RESULT2, RESULT3, RESULT4
)
Note the second argument to the LOG clause, which puts it in base 2 and makes the whole thing work.
Edit: Per David's answer, there's now an actual switch statement if you're lucky enough to be working on office 2016. Aside from difficulty in reading, this also means you get the efficiency of switch, not just the behaviour!
The Switch function is now available, in Excel 2016 / Office 365
SWITCH(expression, value1, result1, [default or value2, result2],…[default or value3, result3])
example:
=SWITCH(A1,0,"FALSE",-1,"TRUE","Maybe")
Microsoft -Office Support
Note: MS has updated that page to only document the behavior of Excel 2019. Eventually, they will probably remove references to 2019 as well... To see what the page looked like in 2016, use the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161010180642/https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SWITCH-function-47ab33c0-28ce-4530-8a45-d532ec4aa25e
Try this;
=IF(B1>=0, B1, OFFSET($X$1, MATCH(B1, $X:$X, Z) - 1, Y)
WHERE
X = The columns you are indexing into
Y = The number of columns to the left (-Y) or right (Y) of the indexed column to get the value you are looking for
Z = 0 if exact-match (if you want to handle errors)
I used this solution to convert single letter color codes into their descriptions:
=CHOOSE(FIND(H5,"GYR"),"Good","OK","Bad")
You basically look up the element you're trying to decode in the array, then use CHOOSE() to pick the associated item. It's a little more compact than building a table for VLOOKUP().
I know it a little late to answer but I think this short video will help you a lot.
http://www.xlninja.com/2012/07/25/excel-choose-function-explained/
Essentially it is using the choose function. He explains it very well in the video so I'll let do it instead of typing 20 pages.
Another video of his explains how to use data validation to populate a drop down which you can select from a limited range.
http://www.xlninja.com/2012/08/13/excel-data-validation-using-dependent-lists/
You could combine the two and use the value in the drop down as your index to the choose function. While he did not show how to combine them, I'm sure you could figure it out as his videos are good. If you have trouble, let me know and I'll update my answer to show you.
I understand that this is a response to an old post-
I like the If() function combined with Index()/Match():
=IF(B2>0,"x",INDEX($H$2:$I$9,MATCH(A2,$H$2:$H$9,0),2))
The if function compare what is in column b and if it is greater than 0, it returns x, if not it uses the array (table of information) identified by the Index() function and selected by Match() to return the value that a corresponds to.
The Index array has the absolute location set $H$2:$I$9 (the dollar signs) so that the place it points to will not change as the formula is copied. The row with the value that you want returned is identified by the Match() function. Match() has the added value of not needing a sorted list to look through that Vlookup() requires. Match() can find the value with a value: 1 less than, 0 exact, -1 greater than. I put a zero in after the absolute Match() array $H$2:$H$9 to find the exact match. For the column that value of the Index() array that one would like returned is entered. I entered a 2 because in my array the return value was in the second column. Below my index array looked like this:
32 1420
36 1650
40 1790
44 1860
55 2010
The value in your 'a' column to search for in the list is in the first column in my example and the corresponding value that is to be return is to the right. The look up/reference table can be on any tab in the work book - or even in another file. -Book2 is the file name, and Sheet2 is the 'other tab' name.
=IF(B2>0,"x",INDEX([Book2]Sheet2!$A$1:$B$8,MATCH(A2,[Book2]Sheet2!$A$1:$A$8,0),2))
If you do not want x return when the value of b is greater than zero delete the x for a 'blank'/null equivalent or maybe put a 0 - not sure what you would want there.
Below is beginning of the function with the x deleted.
=IF(B2>0,"",INDEX...
If you don't have a SWITCH statement in your Excel version (pre-Excel-2016), here's a VBA implementation for it:
Public Function SWITCH(ParamArray args() As Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim val As Variant
Dim tmp As Variant
If ((UBound(args) - LBound(args)) = 0) Or (((UBound(args) - LBound(args)) Mod 2 = 0)) Then
Error 450 'Invalid arguments
Else
val = args(LBound(args))
i = LBound(args) + 1
tmp = args(UBound(args))
While (i < UBound(args))
If val = args(i) Then
tmp = args(i + 1)
End If
i = i + 2
Wend
End If
SWITCH = tmp
End Function
It works exactly like expected, a drop-in replacement for example for Google Spreadsheet's SWITCH function.
Syntax:
=SWITCH(selector; [keyN; valueN;] ... defaultvalue)
where
selector is any expression that is compared to keys
key1, key2, ... are expressions that are compared to the selector
value1, value2, ... are values that are selected if the selector equals to the corresponding key (only)
defaultvalue is used if no key matches the selector
Examples:
=SWITCH("a";"?") returns "?"
=SWITCH("a";"a";"1";"?") returns "1"
=SWITCH("x";"a";"1";"?") returns "?"
=SWITCH("b";"a";"1";"b";TRUE;"?") returns TRUE
=SWITCH(7;7;1;7;2;0) returns 2
=SWITCH("a";"a";"1") returns #VALUE!
To use it, open your Excel, go to Develpment tools tab, click Visual Basic, rightclick on ThisWorkbook, choose Insert, then Module, finally copy the code into the editor. You have to save as a macro-friendly Excel workbook (xlsm).
Even if old, this seems to be a popular questions, so I'll post another solution, which I think is very elegant:
http://fiveminutelessons.com/learn-microsoft-excel/using-multiple-if-statements-excel
It's elegant because it uses just the IF function. Basically, it boils down to this:
if(condition, choose/use a value from the table, if(condition, choose/use another value from the table...
And so on
Works beautifully, even better than HLOOKUP or VLOOOKUP
but... Be warned - there is a limit to the number of nested if statements excel can handle.
Microsoft replace SWITCH, IFS and IFVALUES with CHOOSE only function.
=CHOOSE($L$1,"index_1","Index_2","Index_3")
Recently I unfortunately had to work with Excel 2010 again for a while and I missed the SWITCH function a lot. I came up with the following to try to minimize my pain:
=CHOOSE(SUM((A1={"a";"b";"c"})*ROW(INDIRECT(1&":"&3))),1,2,3)
CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
where A1 is where your condition lies (it could be a formula, whatever). The good thing is that we just have to provide the condition once (just like SWITCH) and the cases (in this example: a,b,c) and results (in this example: 1,2,3) are ordered, which makes it easy to reason about.
Here is how it works:
Cond={"c1";"c2";...;"cn"} returns a N-vector of TRUE or FALSE (with behaves like 1s and 0s)
ROW(INDIRECT(1&":"&n)) returns a N-vector of ordered numbers: 1;2;3;...;n
The multiplication of both vectors will return lots of zeros and a number (position) where the condition was matched
SUM just transforms this vector with zeros and a position into just a single number, which CHOOSE then can use
If you want to add another condition, just remember to increment the last number inside INDIRECT
If you want an ELSE case, just wrap it inside an IFERROR formula
The formula will not behave properly if you provide the same condition more than once, but I guess nobody would want to do that anyway
If your using Office 2016 or later, or Office 365, there is a new function that acts similarly to a CASE function called IFS. Here's the description of the function from Microsoft's documentation:
The IFS function checks whether one or more conditions are met, and returns a value that corresponds to the first TRUE condition. IFS can take the place of multiple nested IF statements, and is much easier to read with multiple conditions.
An example of usage follows:
=IFS(A2>89,"A",A2>79,"B",A2>69,"C",A2>59,"D",TRUE,"F")
You can even specify a default result:
To specify a default result, enter TRUE for your final logical_test argument. If none of the other conditions are met, the corresponding value will be returned.
The default result feature is included in the example shown above.
You can read more about it on Microsoft's Support Documentation