Have COUNTIFS ignore all blank cells (= empty cells and cells containing "") - excel

I want to get a formula with COUNTIFS, like
=COUNTIF(A1:A3,"<>"&"")
such that when A1 = 2, A2 = "", A3 = empty, it returns 1.
Notes:
A2 contains an empty string, as the result of a formula. A3 is a blank cell, with no formulas in it.
The formula posted returns 2.
I tried using various numbers of double quotes. I always get 2.
I tried using &CHAR(34)&CHAR(34). I get 2.
The solution posted in How do I get countifs to select all non-blank cells in Excel? is what I tried, it returns 2 (not useful).
The formula would actually be =COUNTIFS(range1,cond1,range2,cond2), that is why I cannot use something like
=ROWS(A1:A3)-COUNTIF(A1:A3,"") or =ROWS(A1:A3)-COUNTBLANK(A1:A3) (see this).
range1 and range2 would come from expressions with INDIRECT, but that is probably not relevant.
I have worked it out with =SUMPRODUCT(--(expression1),--(ISNUMBER(A1:A3))), but I am specifically asking about the possibility of using COUNTIFS. Discrimination of number vs. text (e.g.) is not relevant at this point.
Blank vs. Empty string is the source of "troubles" (see, e.g., this).
Excel itself is somewhat ambiguous with respect to the definition of BLANK. In my example, ISBLANK(A2) returns FALSE, but COUNTBLANK(A2) returns 1.
I am not interested in a user Function.

Use a SUMPRODUCT function that counts the SIGN function of the LEN function of the cell contents.
    
As per your sample data, A1 has a value, A2 is a zero length string returned by a formula and A3 is truly blank.
The formula in C2 is,
=SUMPRODUCT(SIGN(LEN(A1:A3)))

I was having this exact problem, and I just found out about the "?*" wildcard which searches for any one or more characters, thus avoiding the empty string problem--genius! See Jonathan Gawrych's answer (posted right after the selected answer) here:
Excel Countif Not equal to string length of zero
Not sure if this works for the OP, since it looks like the value in A1 could need to be handled as a number not a string, but it might help anyone else who arrived here looking for a text-parsing solution.

Is using SUM instead of COUNTIFS an option? If so, I've found it to be much more flexible for filtering data sets. For example:
=SUM(IF(NOT(ISBLANK(A1:A3)),IF(NOT(ISTEXT(A1:A3)),1,0),0))
(entered as an array formula). IF(NOT(ISBLANK(x))... filters out non-blanks, then IF(NOT(ISTEXT(x))... filters out non-text. Whatever survives the filters is counted by summing 1. You can add as many filters as necessary. If you wanted to filter out only empty strings but include other text entries you could use a filter like
IF(ISTEXT(x),IF(LEN(x)>0,1,0),0)

Related

Find common text within a range of cells(range containing blanks as well)

This is the problem i am facing in Excel formula
enter image description here
In column F, i want to find the common text across A2 to E2 (containing Blanks)
My Question:
Is there a simple way to get the result without VB?
Any help is appreciated,thanks
I found that google sheets has some really cool functions.
If you put the formula =SPLIT(A1, ",", TRUE,FALSE) in the cell after your row of common text (or probably even in a different sheet - "probably because hadn't tried it, though it should), the next x cells (where x is the number of "," in A1 - because "," is the delimitator) will be the text.
then you can put the code =IF(SUM(ARRAYFORMULA(if(REGEXMATCH($A$1:$D$1,F1),1,0)))=COUNTA($A$1:$D$1),F1,"") into an equal number of cells after that (probably should just put into the max number), and =CONCATENATE(I1:L1) into the last cell.
Ok. So to tweak this for yourself: I found that ARRAYFORMULA lets you put an array in place of a single cell in a function inside. how it exactly works I read its like a for loop. but I can't really vouch for that. but here it lets you have REGEXMATCH (which is a Boolean check on the cell you give it for if it contains the given REGEX) check each cell in the array.
the sum will add them up, and the if will match against the COUNTA to find if the number of cells in the array that contain this string is equal to the number of non-empty cells.
the concatenate at the end adds all the cells (containing the regex function) together, and since the only non-empty cells will be the one with the string, that is what this cell will return (no spaces).
code:
results:
the test data:
If you need in specifically Excel... this won't help.
We can use power query to achieve the desired result.
Unpivot the columns in Power query
Split all the columns by Comma delimiter
Create a custom column to see if the first column records exist in the remaining columns.
Use the functionText.contains.
Sample function: =Text.Contains([column.1],[column.1]&[column.2]&[column.3])
If the above function returns TRUE then get the first column result(This is the expected result) and load the data back to your excel

Extracting strings between specific characters in excel and separating them with a comma

Is there a way to extract multiple strings between specific characters in excel and separating them with a comma.
For example:
I am thankful for every help!
The following requires a version of Excel O365 that supports dynamic arrays and the LET function.
If I understand correctly you are looking for something like this.
This formula will list all the positions of all [ in the string using dynamic array functions.
=LET(x,$B$2,
y, SEQUENCE(LEN(x)),
raw, IF(MID(x,y,1)="[",y,""),
filtered, FILTER(raw,raw<>"",""),
filtered)
LET allows you to set names within a formula using parameter pairs. The first is the name; the second is the value of the name. The last parameter is the value returned. In this case, x is set to cell B2. y is set to the array listing the numbers from 1 to the length of x using the dynamic array function SEQUENCE. raw is a list that shows the value of y if that position is [, otherwise it is blank. filtered uses the FILTER function to remove all of the blank rows. filtered is the last argument of the LET function so that is what is returned. If this formula is entered into cell A4 then A4 will show 1, A5 will show 14 and A6 will show 28.
If you then enter a similar formula in B4 replacing [ with ] then the result is {7,21,35} in cells B4, B5 and B6.
Finally, in cell B2 you can enter =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,MID(A2,A4#+1,B4#-A4#-1)). This will return the result you are looking for.
If you are unfamiliar with dynamic arrays, A4# indicates an entire dynamic array starting in cell A4. In this case, it is the same as A4:A6.
More information on Dynamic Arrays
More information on LET
You can't do it with only formulas in Excel 2007. You need VBA UDF then. With Excel O365 having dynamic formula access, this can be done like:
=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,TRIM(LEFT(FILTERXML("<t><s>"&SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"]",REPT(" ",100)),"[","</s><s> ")&"</s></t>","//s[starts-with(., ' ')]"),100)))
Considering that you are using too old version of excel which lacks dynamic array functions and besides too many other useful functions, You may probably have to do a long workaround here.
First using substitute and len You have to find out number of such square parenthesis in each of the row. Thereafter you have to work out the formula of max of such numbers.
Do it like this
Assuming your text-values in A2 for a max of 4 occurrences enter the following formula in B2
=SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(REPLACE(LEFT(A2,FIND("]",A2&"]")-1),1,FIND("[",A2&"["),"")&" "&REPLACE(LEFT(A2,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("]",2),"]","#",2))-1),1,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("[",2),"[","#",2)),"")&" "&REPLACE(LEFT(A2,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("]",3),"]","#",3))-1),1,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("[",3),"[","#",3)),"")&" "&REPLACE(LEFT(A2,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("]",4),"]","#",4))-1),1,FIND("#",SUBSTITUTE(A2&REPT("[",4),"[","#",4)),"")), " ", ", ")
Let's say this is the text in A2
I have a text [123] and some more [4523] and also [552222] how to extract [22]?
This will create a output of 123,4523,552222,22 in B2
There is no "extraction" in your question, just removal. The formula below replaces the unwanted characters with "", thereby removing them. Please try it.
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"[",""),"]","")

Search function with list of text values fails

I use formula =SEARCH({"N.","No.","#"},D5) and it fails if doesn't fit first option "N." how can I fix it?
Using =SEARCH({"N.","No.","#"},D5) formula when you will see how the formula calculates the result using Evaluate Formula, you'll notice
evaluates to
That means formula is searching only for "N."
Therefore to search for the existence of "N.","No.","#" in a cell, number of approaches are available like:
1. =IF(COUNT(SEARCH({"N.","No.","#"},D5)),1,"")
This formula will give 1 if any of the string in the cell exists.
2. =SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(find_text,D5)))>0
This formula will give TRUE if any of the three string exists else FASLE.

Vlookup returns N/A despite of existing match

I have two tables, table1 and table2. I execute VLOOKUP function in order to fill in 3 columns from table2 into table1.
For some reason, the formula doesn't work for the first row, and doesn't find the exact match from table2 even though it exists.
I made sure that both columns (for comparison) have the same format (General) and there is no extra spacing. Same conditions also apply for the rest of the records, and it works there properly.
table1 - you can see the missing matches for the first row.
table2 - you can see the match does exist, but it is not reflected in table1.
Is there any other reason why VLOOKUP can't find a match for a specific record?
Try directly evaluating equality for the two cells that you believe are equal, for instance if A2 is the value you are looking up and Sheet2!A100 is the value you think should match try this in a cell:
=(A2=Sheet2!A100)
If that returns false then you know that there is some formatting issue or error in your vlookup.
Also try Formulas / Evaluate Formula ribbon command to step through your vlookup in case that highlights something wrong.
Okay - Here's a doozy of a use-case. VLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH were returning #N/A for values that were "apparently" equal. Cleaned my data with =TRIM(CLEAN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,CHAR(160)," "))) and that didn't work.
Then, I compared two cells that looked like they had matching values and they evaluated to FALSE (A1=B1 resulted in FALSE).
Then, as a last resort, I code checked each ASCII value for each character in the two cells and I found that the "-" in one cell was different from the "-" in the other cell. The first cell has the ASCII value 63 and the second cell had the ASCII value 45 for what looked like was the same "-". Turns out that 63 is a "short dash" and 45 is your standard dash or minus symbol.
The way to evaluate the ASCII codes for each character in a string is to combine the CODE function with the MID or RIGHT functions after testing the cells for length using the LEN function.
Examples:
LEN(A1) should equal LEN(B1)
For the first character in each cell:
CODE(A1) Code defaults to the first character on the left
CODE(MID(A1,2,1) yields the ASCII for the second character
CODE(MID(A1,3,1) yields the ASCII for the second character
and so on
If you have a lot of characters you can post an integer sequence next to your CODE-MID function and point the position argument to the related integer and just copy down or across
Or
You can look for the weird non-numeric character and just test that one for both cells.
Have observed scenarios like this where direct comparison fails (e.g. formula =A1=B1 resulted in FALSE) and yet length =LEN(A1)=LEN(B1) and letter by letter ASCI comparison (=CODE(A1,1,1), =CODE(A1,2,1), =CODE(A1,3,1), etc.) shows no difference.
What worked was to adjust the format of the lookup value inside the VLOOKUP.
e.g.
=VLOOKUP(A1, ARRAY, COL_NUM, FALSE) -> =VLOOKUP(TEXT(A1, "000"), ARRAY, COL_NUM, FALSE)
Here's an issue I encountered: my VLOOKUP formula returns the correct value (1) if I type in the value-to-look-up (1.016) directly in the formula, shown in cell F54.
However, if I referenced a value in column A as the value-to-look-up, the formula returned #N/A, as shown in cell F55.
(I was actually trying to VLOOKUP the current row's A value plus 0.015, i.e. VLOOKUP(A54+0.015, $A$3:$B$203, 2, FALSE))
Yet if I use the ROUND function, then the VLOOKUP formula works, as shown in F56.
I recently encountered the same issue and resolved it by changing the vlookup formula to =VLOOKUP([value to lookup], [lookup table], [column to return in the lookup table], False). Setting the last input argument to "false" forces Excel vlookup function to perform an exact match.

SumProduct, doesn't return me text and number. (Only Number)

At first thanks to answer)) (It's important for me :p )
I have a number in A3.
When there is this number in column A (Sheet1), per exemple A7 then it will take the value of the cell B7.
=SOMMEPROD(('Sheet1'!A3:A34=Sheet1!A3)*('Sheet1'!B3:B34))
I use SOMMEPROD, it's working but only with number, and sometimes I have text and number in my cell (column B).
I already changed the format of the cell but doesn't work.
Thanks a lot)))
I think you are saying that some of the values in column B are expressed as text, not as a number, probably because they were imported from another source.
if that is the case: First, convert column B into numbers, Then, use sumproduct.
For example, FIRST convert text to values:
in C3 you would enter
=value(b3)
Then copy that down to from C3 to C34.
Then
=SOMMEPROD(('Sheet1'!A3:A34=Sheet1!A3)*('Sheet1'!C3:C34))
should have the desired effect.
Note that you sometime get #N/A errors with the "value" function, for example if there are unexpected spaces. To be safe, rather than using value alone, try this:
= iferror(value(B3),0)
or to be more creative you can try:
= iferror(value(substitute(B3," ","")),0) ' deletes all spaces
= iferror(value(substitute(substitute(b3,char(160),"")," ","")),0)
'deletes all spaces and "nonbreaking spaces" copied from a web page
It depends on what you're trying to use SumProduct for. There's two main reasons this function shows up. Those are:
To sum the product of two ranges.
To sum a range of numbers that meet multiple criteria. This relies on that True = 1 and False = 0 so when want to find the combined weight of blue dogs in some cells, your formula might look like =SUMPRODUCT(1*($A$1:$A$50 = "Blue"), 1*($B$1:$B$50 = "Dog"), $C$1:$C$50). Note the 1* which guarantees the formula will know how to multiply the results. After all, True and False don't multiply. Their binary representations (1 and 0) though, do.
NB though that people also sometimes remember it as a lookup formula because of the second use, and therefore expect to be able to get text back. Such approaches are an easy misunderstanding to end up with, but really there you want to use an INDEX(<Result Array>,MATCH(1,INDEX(1 * (FIRST CONDITION) * (SECOND CONDITION) * (AND SO ON),,),0). This approach basically gives you an array formula without CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER (it's not faster, but because the condition is in an index formula, it works), and your conditions can be arbitrary (the same way as for sumproduct). But it'll give you the FIRST result, not the sum of all of them.
Hope that helps.
Edit: Crossed my mind, you might be expecting A1 to contain Erp and B1 to contain 54, and in C1 you want Erp54. This doesn't even need a function - just the & operator, which joins two strings together - so in C1, you'd just put =A1 & B1. And you're done.

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