How to implement 'sumifs' in evaluate-function - excel

Question

I have found a macro to evaluate strings. It is working fine with most formulas. But it wont evalute my sumifs-formulas.
The VBA for WM_Eval() goes like this:
Function wm_Eval(myFormula As String, ParamArray variablesAndValues() As
Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Long
'
' replace strings by values
'
For i = LBound(variablesAndValues) To UBound(variablesAndValues) Step 2
myFormula = RegExpReplaceWord(myFormula, variablesAndValues(i),
variablesAndValues(i + 1))
Next
'
' internationalisation
'
myFormula = Replace(myFormula, Application.ThousandsSeparator, "")
myFormula = Replace(myFormula, Application.DecimalSeparator, ".")
myFormula = Replace(myFormula,
Application.International(xlListSeparator), ",")
'
' return value
'
wm_Eval = Application.Evaluate(myFormula)
End Function
If I type wm_Eval("1+1") it works like a charm. But if I do:
="sumifs(b2:b10,a2:a10,"&D2&">=2"&D2&")" where d2=" it returns #Value.
So the formula it should evaluate would be: sumifs(b2:b10,a2:a10,">=2")
I am accustomed to danish excel - so it might just be something very very simple I am missing.

Answer 1

I feel you should give some more information about why you need this function, as I'm sure there'd be a better of way of achieving the task than the code above.
There are a number of reasons the function is returning an error. The main one is that your formula syntax isn't right. The wm_Eval() function requires a formula argument and then pairs of variable and value parameters. You haven't included the code for your RegExpReplaceWord() function, but I'd imagine it runs some kind of replacement of values for pseudo formula variables. Without seeing that part of your code, it's difficult to guess at the syntax, but a mock-up of the principle would be something like:
=wm_Eval("SUMIFS(A1:A4,B1:B4,{a})","{a}",">=1")
where {a} is replaced by ">=1"
Data type is also an issue, as you can see in the following syntax:
=wm_Eval("SUMIFS(A1:A4,B1:B4,{a})","{a}",1)
I don't want to be too brutal, but this code is pretty poorly constructed and there's no way that it'll be able to parse all the different formulae with various passed in parameters. Yes it works for SUM but that's because you don't pass in any variable-value pairs. I would steer away from this solution and come up with something more robust. If for example you want to gather string versions of your formula, why not just pass in the range containing the formula and deal with it from there?
I can tell you that I have written a routine to parse values from formulas. It is long and complex and took many, many hours to develop including some WINAPI calls and hooks, so you have a lot of work ahead of you if you wish to continue with your current approach.
However, I guess I ought to show you how your current function works, so I've mocked-up a RegExpReplaceWord() function and commented out that internationalisation code:
Public Function wm_Eval(myFormula As String, ParamArray variablesAndValues() As Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Long
'
' replace strings by values
'
For i = LBound(variablesAndValues) To UBound(variablesAndValues) Step 2
myFormula = RegExpReplaceWord(myFormula, variablesAndValues(i), variablesAndValues(i + 1))
Next
'
' internationalisation
'
' myFormula = Replace(myFormula, Application.ThousandsSeparator, "")
' myFormula = Replace(myFormula, Application.DecimalSeparator, ".")
' myFormula = Replace(myFormula, Application.International(xlListSeparator), ",")
'
' return value
'
wm_Eval = Application.Evaluate(myFormula)
End Function
Private Function RegExpReplaceWord(myFormula As String, variable As Variant, value As Variant) As String
If VarType(value) = vbString Then
value = """" & value & """"
End If
RegExpReplaceWord = Replace(myFormula, variable, value)
End Function
So in your worksheet cell, you can add the functions as shown in the quote blocks above.
In summary, I wouldn't continue with your current approach or you will be plagued with so many errors that your lost 3 days will seem like nothing.