I need a formula that will return the County, separate from the code and date.
Kent BEC100 30/09/14
Not all counties are one word so I need a formula that ignores the last two words, I have one that will find the last word, second last word, first word, but I need one that will pull everything except the last two words. There are occasions where the county isn't present so I'm thinking I need to add an ISERROR in?
Bedford BED101 30/09/14
BLA102 30/09/14
Lancs BOL100 30/09/14
Coventry, West Midla COV100 30/09/14
west Sussex CRA101 30/09/14
If your string does not contain a pipe and is already trimmed, then use
=LEFT(A1,FIND("|",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","|",-1+LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))-1)
Here's how it works:
LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","") is the number of spaces.
SUBSTITUTE inserts a pipe at the penultimate space (with the help of my -1)
FIND gets the position of that pipe.
LEFT extracts the string up to that point.
If your string does contain a pipe, then use a different character. You can enclose the whole thing inside an IFERROR (you allude to this in the question) if you need more robustness.
In your examples code and date are always the same length so this formula will work if that always holds
=TRIM(MID(A1,1,LEN(A1)-15))
Related
In the image, 'muddle' is the string containing junk words and the strings I want to extract. There is a fixed list of junk words - the good strings could be literally anything.
You can see this formula has correctly extracted "moo" and "coo", which are not in the list of junk words. The formula is below.
=LET(junkStart,FILTER(SEARCH(Table1[junkwords],Table2[muddle]),ISNUMBER(SEARCH(Table1[junkwords],Table2[muddle]))),
junkEnd,FILTER(SEARCH(Table1[junkwords],Table2[muddle])+LEN(Table1[junkwords])-1,ISNUMBER(SEARCH(Table1[junkwords],Table2[muddle])+LEN(Table1[junkwords])-1)),
goodstart,FILTER(junkEnd+1,(junkEnd+1<=LEN(Table2[muddle]))*(ISERROR(XMATCH(junkEnd+1,junkStart)))),
goodend,FILTER(junkStart-1,(junkStart-1>=LEN(1))*(ISERROR(XMATCH(junkStart-1,junkEnd))))+1,
goodchars,goodend-goodstart,
TEXTJOIN("; ",TRUE,MID(Table2[muddle],goodstart,goodchars)))
This works well, but it falls down if a junk word occurs more than once. See below.
The only difference is that 'woo' occurs twice in the second example.
I need a single cell solution. VBA is not an option for me. Using the name manager would be untidy, as would nested formulas.
I've got this far with formulas, which as far as I can tell is the furthest anyone has got with the 'removing multiple words from a cell' problem. I can see the issue - once SEARCH locates the start of a string in a cell, it doesn't go looking for a second occurrence of that string. But I don't know how to find the start of every instance of every string. Can anyone help?
REDUCE is perfect for this:
=REDUCE(Table2[muddle],Table1[junkwords],LAMBDA(m,j,SUBSTITUTE(m,j,"")))
REDUCE starts at the Table2[muddle] value as m then it substitutes the first value of Table1[junkwords] j with "" the outcome becomes the new m which will get a substitute of the second value of j. The result will be the new m, etc.
If you would want to have it comma separated it becomes more complicated, but you can realize by:
=LET(t,SUBSTITUTE(","&REDUCE(Table2[muddle],Table1[junkwords],LAMBDA(x,y,SUBSTITUTE(x,y,",")))&",",",,",","),
MID(t,2,LEN(t)-3))
This does almost the same as the previous solution, but instead of substituting for blanks it substitutes for , and substitutes all duplicate ,, for singles, so if more substitutes followed eachother it results in one comma. Also, if the first and/or last part got substituted by a single ,, then the result would have a leading and/or trailing ,. This is solved by first adding , in the front and back before substituting the double comma's for singles. the result t is then wrapped in MID, where the first and last character (both being a ,) are removed.
Alternate solution:
=LET(t,REDUCE(Table2[muddle],Table1[junkwords],LAMBDA(x,y,SUBSTITUTE(x,y," "))),
SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(t)," ",","))
Or in one go if you don't want to use LET:
=SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(REDUCE(Table2[muddle],Table1[junkwords],LAMBDA(x,y,SUBSTITUTE(x,y," "))))," ",",")
This replaces the junk words with a space. Regardless how many junk words in between words or how many trailing or leading spaces TRIM will fix it to the words separated by one space only. Substituting the spaces for comma gets to your result.
There's no single-formula solution if the junkwords list is not fixed.
Instead, you may choose to use the Substitute() function on each cell of the "Extracted Strings" column to substitute all occurances of each junk word in muddle, i.e. substitute "boo" muddle, then substitute "voo" in the resulted string, replace "noo" in the resulted string...so on. You will get the last cell.
One point to note though, you need to ensure no substring / partial strings problem in the junkwords or you need to define the rules of processing in order for the solution to be "complete". Consider the followings:
junk words = abc, def, cde
muddle = 1234abcdef5678
if you process the string in the above order, you got "12345678"
if you process the junk words in reverse order, you got "123abf5678"
The attached image (link: https://i.stack.imgur.com/w0pEw.png) shows a range of cells (B1:B7) from a table I imported from the web. I need a formula that allows me to extract the names from each cell. In this case, my objective is to generate the following list of names, where each name is in its own cell: Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, John Tavares, Matthew Tkachuk, Steven Stamkos, Dustin Brown, Shea Weber.
I have been reading about left, right, and mid functions, but I'm confused by the irregular spacing and special characters (i.e. the box with question mark beside some names).
Can anyone help me extract the names? Thanks
Assuming that your cells follow the same format, you can use a variety of text functions to get the name.
This function requires the following format:
Some initial text, followed by
2 new lines in Excel (represented by CHAR(10)
The name, which consists of a first name, a space, then a last name
A second space on the same line as the name, followed by some additional text.
With this format, you can use the following formula (assuming your data is in an Excel table, with the column of initial data named Text):
=MID([#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text])+1)+1,SEARCH(" ",MID([#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text])+1)+1,LEN([#Text])),SEARCH(" ",MID([#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text])+1)+1,LEN([#Text])))+1)-1)
To come up with this formula, we take the following steps:
First, we figure out where the name starts. We know this occurs after the 2 new lines, so we use:
=SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text],SEARCH(CHAR(10),[#Text])+1)+1
The inner (occurring second) SEARCH finds the first new line, and the outer (occurring first) finds the 2nd new line.
Now that we have that value, we can use it to determine the rest of the string (after the 2 new lines). Let's say that the previous formula was stored in a table column called Start of Name. The 2nd formula will then be:
=MID([#Text],[#[Start of Name]],LEN([#Text]))
Note that we're using the length of the entire text, which by definition is more than we need. However, that's not an issue, since Excel returns the smaller amount between the last argument to MID and the actual length of the text.
Once we have the text from the start of the name on, we need to calculate the position of the 2nd space (where the name ends). To do that, we need to calculate the position of the first space. This is similar to how we calculated the start of the name earlier (which starts after 2 new lines). The function we need is:
=SEARCH(" ",[#[Rest of String]],SEARCH(" ",[#[Rest of String]])+1)-1
So now, we know where the name starts (after 2 new lines), and where it ends (after the 2nd space). Assuming we have these numbers stored in columns named Start of Name and To Second Space respectively, we can use the following formula to get the name:
=MID([#Text],[#[Start of Name]],[#[To Second Space]])
This is equivalent to the first formula: The difference is that the first formula doesn't use any "helper columns".
Of course, if any cell doesn't match this format, then you'll be out of luck. Using Excel formulas to parse text can be finicky and inflexible. For example, if someone has a middle name, or someone has a initials with spaces (e.g. P.K. Subban was P. K. Subban), or there was a Jr. or something, your job would be a lot harder.
Another alternative is to use regular expressions to get the data you want. I would recommend this thorough answer as a primer. Although you still have the same issues with name formats.
Finally, there's the obligatory Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names as a warning against assuming any kind of standardized name format.
While I can extract the first word from a cell containing multiple text values with error checking to return the only word if no multiple values exist. I cannot seem to wrap my brain around adding more checks (or if it is even possible in the same nested formula) for situations where some of the source cells contain a comma between multiple words. Example, the formula below will return "James" from "James Marriott". But, it returns "James," from "James, Marriott". If all of my cells in the range were consistent that would be easy, but they aren't. Attempts to nest multiple find statements have resulted in failure. Suggestions?
=IFERROR(LEFT(A1,FIND(" ",A2)-1),A2)
To compound matters, there are also cells that contain abbreviations as the first word, so somehow I need to account for that as well. For example "J.W. Marriott" where I need to apply the above logic to extract "Marriott".
Here are some examples below:
Text Desired output
James Marriott James
James, Marriott James
Able Acme Able
Golden, Eagle Golden
J.W. Marriott Marriott
A.B. Acme Acme
you could use regex (to set up please look at the post here)
Then you can extract the desired word with a formula like:
=regex(A1, "(?![Etc])[a-zA-Z]{2,}")
(This is searching for a pattern of two or more lower or upper case letters in the cell A1...and not searching for Etc)
I have 2 column data in Excel like this:
Can somebody help me write a formula in column C that will take the first name or the last name from column A and match it with column B and paste the values in column C. The following picture will give you the exact idea what I am trying to do. Thanks
Since your data is not "regular", you can try this formula which uses wild card to look for just the last name.
=INDEX($B$1:$B$4,MATCH("*" &MID(A1,FIND(" ",A1)+1,99)&"*",$B$1:$B$4,0))
It would be simpler if the first part followed some rule, but some have the first initial of the first name at the beginning; and others at the end.
Edit: (explanation added)
The FIND returns the character number of the first space
Add 1 to that to get the character number of the next word
Use MID to extract that word
Use that word in MATCH (with wild-cards before and after), to find it in the array of email addresses. This will return it's position in the array (row number)
Use that row number as an argument to the INDEX function to return the actual email address.
If you want to first examine the email address, you will need to determine which of the letters comprise the last name. Since this is not regular according to your example, you will need to check both options.
You will not be able to look for the first name from the email, as it is not present.
If you can guarantee that the first part will be follow the rule of one or the other, eg: either
FirstInitialLastName or
LastNameFirstInitial
Then you can try this:
=IFERROR(INDEX($B$1:$B$4,MATCH(MID(A1,FIND(" ",A1)+1,99)& LEFT(A1,1) &"*",$B$1:$B$4,0)),
INDEX($B$1:$B$4,MATCH( LEFT(A1,1)&MID(A1,FIND(" ",A1)+1,99) &"*",$B$1:$B$4,0)))
This seems to do what you want.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(LOWER(MID(A1,(SEARCH(" ",A1)+1),LEN(A1)))&LOWER(MID(A1,1,1))&"*",$B$1:$B$4,1,FALSE),VLOOKUP(LOWER(MID(A1,1,1))&LOWER(MID(A1,(SEARCH(" ",A1)+1),LEN(A1)))&"*",$B$1:$B$4,1,FALSE))
Its pretty crazy long and would likely be easier to digest and debug broken up into columns instead of one huge formula.
It basically makes FLast and FirstL out of the name field by splitting on the space.
LastF:
=LOWER(MID(A1,(SEARCH(" ",A1)+1),LEN(A1)))&LOWER(MID(A1,1,1))
And FirstL:
=LOWER(MID(A1,1,1))&LOWER(MID(A1,(SEARCH(" ",A1)+1),LEN(A1)))
We then make 2 vlookups for these by using wildcards:
LastF:
=VLOOKUP([lastfirst equation from above]&"*",$B$1:$B$4,1,FALSE)
And FirstL:
=VLOOKUP([firstlast equation from above]&"*",$B$1:$B$4,1,FALSE)
And then wrap those in IfError so they both get tried:
=IfError([firstLast vlookup],[lastfirst vlookup])
The rub is that's going to be hell to edit if you ever need to, which is why I suggest doing each piece in another column then referencing the previous one.
You also need to be aware that this answer will get tripped up by essentially the same name - e.g. Sam Smith and Sasha Smith would both match whatever the first entry for ssmith was. Any solution here will likely have the same pitfall.
Suppose I have a list of two-word pairs in a column in Excel. These words are delimited by a space so that a typical pair might look like "extreme happiness". The goal is to search for these 'bigrams' in a larger string located in another column. The issue is that the bigram will only be found if the two words are together and separated by a space. What would be preferable is if Excel could look for both words anywhere in a given larger string. It is crucial that the bigrams occupy one cell each since a score is assigned to each bigram and in fact the function used VLOOKUPs this value based on the bigram cell value. Would it make sense to change the space between any two words to a - or some other character? Is there a way to have Excel look up each value one at a time (perhaps by recognizing this character and passing through the larger string twice, that is, once for each word)?
Example: "The weather last night was extremely cold, but the warm fire gave me some happiness."
Here we would like to find both the word 'extreme' within the word extremely and the word happiness. Currently Excel would not be successful in doing this since it would just look for "extreme happiness" and determine that no such string exists.
If the bigram in the row below "extreme happiness" reads "weather gave" (for some reason) Excel will go check whether that bigram exists in the larger string and return a second score. This is done so that at the end every score can be added together.
This is pretty easy with a couple of formulas. See screenshot below:
The logic is simple. Assuming your bigram is in B1, we can input the following in C1. This will replace the spaces with *, which is Excel's wildcard character.
=SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","*")
Then we concatenate it to give us a wildcarded beginning and end.
=CONCATENATE("*",SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","*"),"*")
We then use a simple COUNTIF against the statement (here in A1) to return to us a count of occurence.
=COUNTIF(A2,CONCATENATE("*",SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","*"),"*"))
A simple IF check enclosing the above, with condition >0, can be used to give us either Yes or No.
=IF(COUNTIF(A2,CONCATENATE("*",SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","*"),"*"))>0,"Yes","No")
Let us know if this helps.