Formula to find match in two-dimensional range - excel

I need a formula that will look up a value in a 2-dimensional range and return the coordinates or cell address of the matching cell. For example:
R A B C
1 John Matt Pete
2 Sara Bret Chad
3 Lila Maya Cami
I want to search the range A1:C3 for Chad and return C2 or 2,3. How can I accomplish this using Excel formulas? (I'll actually end up applying this to Google Sheets).
Thanks!

Old question, but I thought I'd share a much simpler and elegant answer here that doesn't involve helper columns or complicated formulas, so that more people will get things done easier. Assuming that the table contains unique values and that you use E1 to store your search string Chad and E2 to display the result:
if you want the row and column result of 2,3 in E2:
=SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*ROW(A1:C3)) & "," & SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*COLUMN(A1:C3))
if you want the R1C1 style cell address string of C2 in E2:
=ADDRESS(SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*ROW(A1:C3)),SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*COLUMN(A1:C3)))
if you want the found cell's contents of Chad in E2:
=INDIRECT(ADDRESS(SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*ROW(A1:C3)),SUMPRODUCT((A1:C3=E1)*COLUMN(A1:C3))))
How things work:
SUMPRODUCT returns in this case the sum of the products between a boolean array of TRUE (searched value found in cell) and FALSE (searched value not found in cell) for every cell in the table and the corresponding row/column (absolute) numbers of those cells in the sheet; thus, the result is essentially the row/column (absolute) number of the cell where the value has been found, since TRUE=1 and FALSE=0 in mathematical terms
ADDRESS returns a cell's address as text (not as reference!)
INDIRECT returns the reference corresponding to a cell's text address
Source and credit goes to: this answer by XOR LX. Could have added the link in a comment, mentioning the duplicate question, but I wanted to expand and explain the answer a little bit, therefore more characters were needed.

Assuming you're using Excel 2007 and above.
You will need a helper column. If your table looks like in your example, in cell D1 write:
=IFERROR(MATCH($E$1,$A1:$C1,0),0)
And drag it down. Then in cell E1 write your search value ("Chad" for instance). Then you have your search result in cell E2 with this formula:
=IF(MAX($D:$D)=0,NA(),MATCH(MAX($D:$D),$D:$D,1)&","&MAX($D:$D))

If you want a simpler solution, it is possible to use only one helper (or not at all, at the cost of a complicated formulae).
Let's say I take your example. I will use the D column to display result :
In D1, I put the name I want to find : Chad
In D2, I put the helper that will return an Index of the value searched (-1 if not found) : =IFERROR(MATCH(D1,SPLIT(TEXTJOIN(";",TRUE,A1:C3),";"),0),-1)
In D3, I put the formulae to get the row,column value (FALSE if not found) : =IF(D2<>-1,ROUNDUP(DIVIDE(D2,COLUMNS(A1:C3))) & "," & IF(MOD(D2,COLUMNS(A1:C3))=0,COLUMNS(A1:C3),MOD(D2,COLUMNS(A1:C3))))
If you really want to use only one formulae, it is possible in D3 to replace all references to D2 by the formulae used in D2.

This formula returns the row and column number of a given value in a two-dimensional array.
=LET(
array, B2:D4,
findvalues, C7,
arrayrows, ROWS(array),
arraycols, COLUMNS(array),
rowindex, SEQUENCE(arrayrows*arraycols,,1,1/arraycols),
colindex, MOD(SEQUENCE(arrayrows*arraycols,,0),arraycols)+1,
flatarray, INDEX(array,rowindex,colindex),
valueflatindex, MATCH(findvalues,flatarray,0),
valuerow, ROUNDUP(valueflatindex/arraycols,0),
valuecol, MOD(valueflatindex-1,arraycols)+1,
absvaluerow, MIN(ROW(array))+valuerow-1,
absvaluecol, MIN(COLUMN(array))+valuecol-1,
CHOOSE({1,2},absvaluerow,absvaluecol)
)
A B C D E
1
2 John Matt Pete
3 Sara Bret Chad
4 Lila Maya Cami
5
6
7 find: Chad
8 formula: 3 4
More precisely, this formula scans a given array row by row and returns the address of the first occurrence of a given value.
If you need the row and column numbers relative to the array's top left cell, then in CHOOSE(...), instead of absvaluerow/absvaluecol, use valuerow/valuecol.
If you want the values to be comma separated and in one cell, instead of CHOOSE(...), use absvaluerow & "," & absvaluecol
If your Excel version does not support the latest functions, such as LET, the formula should still work if you rewrite it so that it does not use the LET variables.
Find Multiple Values
You can also find multiple values in an array using this formula as explained in my answer in this thread.

Related

Excel Formula with IF... ELSE

Hi all,
I have this excel where by I need to find the location of the item if they are found in column B.
So In my F column, I tried to write ifelse formula which didnt work.which is
=IF(D2="NULL","NONE",C((D2))).
My idea is if D2 is not null, use the value in D column to find the location in C column. In this example, fish no 4, so it is found, my F column should show the value "C" using the value shown in D column and use it as Row no in C column
I hope you guys get the idea and help me out a newbie in excel. Thanks in advance
=vlookup($D2,$A$2:$C$6,3,0)
you can use that in column F. Place that formula in F2 and copy down.
you could technically use it in column E as well, but you would need to change the 3 to a 2.
you did not say what you wanted to do if the D value was "Null" so I am going to take a stab at the dark and wrap you lookup formula in an if statement that will deal with "Null" or empty cells
=IF(OR($D2="NULL",$D2=""),"",VLOOKUP($D2,$A$2:$C$6,3,0))
That is the alternative formula to place in F2 and copy down.
Use the formula:
=IF(D2<>"NULL",VLOOKUP(D2,A2:C6,3,FALSE),"Value is NULL")
Here is the working example:
Put formula in cell F2 and drag it down.
[edit]to pull proper location column, not just the row #[/edit]
Seems like a job for MATCH+OFFSET
Try this formula in cell F2:
=OFFSET($C$1, MATCH(E2,B:B,0)-1, 0, 1, 1)
Match is used to locate the value in the first argument (ie E2) within the range specified in 2nd argument (ie B:B). I use B:B but you could also use range B2:B30 or whatever more specific range you want. (I prefer the more generic B:B, though :) )
Third paramter "0" just indicates "Exact match".
This function will retun "#N/A" if nothing found.
OFFSET takes the result from MATCH to pick out the Location you want. The first parameter in OFFSET is the rows below (or above if negative) from the base row (in this case $C$1). the next is the column: 0 since we're in the column we want to be in. The last two are the size of the range: 1,1 is a 1x1 cell, so just 1 cell. If we did ...,2,3), that would be 2 rows high and 3 columns wide - or a 6 cell range. We're just after 1 cell here.
I've always preferred MATCH + OFFSET to other options, I just found they held up more robustly to changes in a sheet (ie new rows/columns added). So it's mostly personaly preference over VLOOKUP and INDEX. I honestly have never compared their actual performance, however, I've never had any issues with MATCH+OFFSET running slowly :)

Excel, append one range to the end of another in one column

I have two columns of data in Excel. I would like to add a third column which combines the first and second. How can I do this with a formula such that I can add or remove data from columns A and B without ever having to touch column C?
Column A Column B Column C
Bob Mary Bob
Joe Melissa Joe
Jim Jackie Jim
Mary
Melissa
Jackie
The question explicit mention Microsoft Office Excel but I think would be good to add that if you are using Google Sheets a simpler solution is to use the curly brackets function/operator as mentioned by Lake at https://stackoverflow.com/a/14151000/1802726.
Here is a simple solution using FILTERXML and TEXTJOIN that can append MULTIPLE RANGES OF ANY SIZE, ARRAY FORMULAS AND REGULAR FORMULAS. Just replace YOUR_RANGES with the ranges or dynamic arrays you wish to join:
Simple version that ignores empty cells:
=FILTERXML("<A><B>" & TEXTJOIN("</B><B>",TRUE,YOUR_RANGES) & "</B></A>", "//B")
This one includes empty cells:
=IFERROR(FILTERXML("<A><B>" & TEXTJOIN("</B><B>",FALSE,YOUR_RANGE) & "</B></A>", "//B"), "")
If your input data contains the "<" character, the formulas above will return an error, so use this one instead:
=IFERROR(SUBSTITUTE(FILTERXML("<A><B>" & SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(TEXTJOIN("ΨΨ",FALSE,YOUR_RANGE),"<","ЉЉ"),"ΨΨ","</B><B>")&"</B></A>","//B"),"ЉЉ","<"),"")
Note: you can change the FALSE to TRUE to ignore empty cells.
Note 2: You can replace the characters ЉЉ and ΨΨ by any character(s). I used these specific characters because it is very unlikely that your input data will contain ЉЉ or ΨΨ, which would cause errors.
NOTES:
Tested on:
Excel 365
EXAMPLE:
Using the simple version of the formula:
=FILTERXML("<A><B>" & TEXTJOIN("</B><B>",TRUE,A1:A3,B1:B3,C1:C3) & "</B></A>", "//B")
As a result you will get a dynamic array with the joined/appended ranges:
You can then apply any dynamic array formula (like UNIQUE) to the result.
HOW THIS WORKS:
The JOINTEXT function grabs your ranges and joins them as a text with the delimiter "</ B >< B >". Then, after adding "< A >< B >" to the beginning and "</ B ></ A >" to the end, we have an XML formatted text:
<A><B>1</B><B>2</B><B>3</B><B>A</B><B>B</B><B>C</B><B>!</B><B>#</B><B>#</B></A>
Finally, the FILTERXML will separate the tags into a dynamic array which will be the joined/appended ranges.
Enter the following formula into cell C1
=IF(ROW()>COUNTA(A:B),"",IF(ROW()<=COUNTA(A:A),INDEX(A:A,ROW()),INDEX(B:B,ROW()-COUNTA(B:B))))
Then copy down as far as you need.
Here's a nice way of interleaving the two rows.
In other words, turning this:
A X
B Y
C Z
into this:
X
A
Y
B
Z
C
Say the above table is in columns one and two, you'd do:
=IF(MOD(ROW(),2)=0,INDIRECT(ADDRESS(INT(ROW()/2), 1)),
INDIRECT(ADDRESS(INT(ROW()/2)+1, 2)))
Explanation
Let's break that down a little. The first part is MOD(ROW(), 2) which returns a zero if the current row is even, and a one if it's odd.
So the IF goes FALSE/TRUE/FALSE/TRUE as we go down the column.
Next, the ADDRESS(INT(ROW()/2), 1) returns us a string representation of the address of the cell at column 1 and at half the current row. (Rounded down). This piece on its own looks like:
#VALUE!
$A$1
$A$1
$A$2
$A$2
$A$3
$A$3
(That first #VALUE error is because 1/2 = 0.5 which rounds down to zero. There's no row zero!)
The INDIRECT function returns whatever value is found at that address.
The rest is pretty clear.
NOTE: There may be a slicker way than using INDIRECT and ADDRESS. Suggestions welcome.

Looking up a value in a specified column

Something I've wanted to do quite a bit lately, and can't work out how to do, is MATCH in a column I pass as an argument. Essentially, I have a two dimensional array, and I want to be able to find the first occurrence of a given value in the nth column, for any given value of n, and return the row number it occurs at. Alternatively (and more-or-less equivalently), I want to be able to search in the column with a given column header. Is there any way to do this?
Effectively, I want to simulate the non-existent function =MATCH(lookup_value,lookup_array,lookup_column,[match_type])
I've kludged together a horrible bodge job using INDIRECT, which works, but offends me horribly.
=MATCH(lookup_value,INDIRECT("R"&<top of array>&"C"&<left of array>+<column reference>&":R"&<bottom of array>&"C"&<left of array>+<column reference>,FALSE),FALSE)
This formula should work for you and will avoid INDIRECT. Anytime you can avoid using Indirect, I recommend doing so.
=MATCH(lookup_value,INDEX(lookup_array,0,MATCH(lookup_header,array_headers,0)),0)
If you aren't looking up the column by column header and just have the column number, then it becomes easier:
=MATCH(lookup_value,INDEX(lookup_array,0,column_number),0)
You could do something like this:
Set findCell = ActiveSheet.Range("A:Z").Find(What:="term_to_search")
Will select a header based on your search term.
Set range = ActiveSheet.Range(findCell, findCell.Offset(DEF_MAX_ROWS, 0))
Set up a range which will search from that header down a whole column.
For column references beyond Z you might switch notation (Excel Options, Formulas, Working with formulas and check R1C1 reference style) and, assuming the value to be looked up is in 'A1' (R1C1) with the column number in 'A2' (R2C1) apply:
=MATCH(R1C1,INDIRECT("C"&R2C1,0),0)
to save some complexity in converting a string of two or three characters into the relevant column number.
Say we have a two dimensional array: B3:E17 and we wish to locate Happiness in the third column of that array.In G1 enter:
B3:E17
In G2 enter:
3
In G3 enter:
=ADDRESS(ROW(INDIRECT(G1)),COLUMN(INDIRECT(G1))+$G$2-1) & ":" & ADDRESS(ROW(INDIRECT(G1))+ROWS(INDIRECT(G1))-1,COLUMN(INDIRECT(G1))+$G$2-1)
This will display the address of that third column. Then in G4 enter:
=MATCH("Happiness",INDIRECT(G3),0)
For example:
You can specify a range in a formula using the INDIRECT function. So, for example, if you put the letter designation for the column you want to search in cell A75, you could use:
=MATCH("Value_To_Match", INDIRECT(A75 & ":" & A75), 0)
So, if the value in A75 is G, the string built up in the INDIRECT call is G:G, and the MATCH will look through column G for "Value_To_Match" and return the row number in which it's found.
Using this idea, you can put a formula into A75 that generates the column designation for the column you want to search. For example, if your column headers are all in row 1, and the header you want to search for is in A74, you can do:
=CHAR(MATCH(A74, 1:1, 0) + 64)
using the CHAR function to convert numbers into ASCII characters, so 65 becomes A, 66 becomes B, etc. Note that this will only work if you don't have columns past Z. You'd need a more fussy formula to do the right thing with AA, etc.
You can overcome the annoyances of dealing with column letters by using R1C1 notation instead, which you can activate by adding a second parameter of FALSE to the INDIRECT expression. Now, instead of specifying your column by a letter, you'll specify it using a number. This simplifies the column-finder in A75:
=MATCH(A74, 1:1, 0)
and also the INDIRECT expression in your overall MATCH:
=MATCH("Value_To_Match", INDIRECT("C" & A75, FALSE), 0)

Summing numeric portion of cell when alpha portion of cell is the same

I have a spreadsheet that has columns for dates and the values can be either "1v, .5v, 1p, .5p, 1s, .5s"
I have 3 columns in each row one for each letter "v, p and s". I want to be able to add the total of all cells in the range grouped by letter and then display the sum for each letter in it's respective column (v, p or c).
Here is an example of the sheet:
Name Vacation Personal Sick 1/5/15 1/6/15 1/7/15 1/8/15
Billy 1.5 1 0 .5v 1v 1p
It is the formula that goes in the vacation/personal/sick cell that I just can't figure out.
I went down the array formula route and came up with essentially the same formula as #Sancho.s :-
=SUM(LEFT($E2:$H2,LEN($E2:$H2)-1)*(RIGHT($E2:$H2)="v"))
You could modify it to take account of blanks:-
=SUM(IF($E2:$H2<>"",LEFT($E2:$H2,LEN($E2:$H2)-1)*(RIGHT($E2:$H2)="v")))
Perhaps this would be better, to ignore any mis-formatted cells:-
=SUM(IFERROR(LEFT($E2:$H2,LEN($E2:$H2)-1)*(RIGHT($E2:$H2)="v"),0))
These all have to be put in with Ctrl-Shift-Enter.
Assuming the range you posted starts at A1, use
=SUMPRODUCT((RIGHT($E2:$G2,1)="v")*LEFT($E2:$G2,LEN($E2:$G2)-1))
in B2. Change "v" and the range to use suitably.
Pro:
It is not an array formula. See why this may be important
Con:
I could not make it work with blank cells.
This "array entered" version will also allow blanks
=SUM(IF(RIGHT(E2:G2)="v",SUBSTITUTE(E2:G2,"v","")+0))
confirmed with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER

Excel INDEX and MATCH Get Value

I have an excel workbook that I need some help with INDEX and MATCH or any other Formula that can get me my end result.
Here is sheet1:
SIT_ID METER SUSE_CD
10834282 DT0061 B
10834282 AW7931 P
21676286 CQ9635 P
21676286 DP4838 B
21726281 AW7880 P
21726281 DT0032 B
Here is Sheet2:
Site ID B P
10834282
21676286
21726281
Ultimately what I am trying to do is on Sheet2 is put the Meter that = B for the SITEID in the column and then Put the Meter that = P in the Same row.
I have never used Index or Match and I looked it up online but I am confused and hoping someone can help me with the correct formula or point me in the right direction.
Thanks so much!
INDEX first takes a range, then a row number, an optional column number (and an optional area number).
MATCH takes a value to lookup, an array and a mode.
In your problem you can use the following in Sheet2 cell B2:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$7, MATCH($A2, IF(Sheet1!$C$2:$C$7=B$1,Sheet1!$A$2:$A$7), 0))
This formula is an array formula and will work with Ctrl+Shift+Enter and then you can fill it to the other cells.
I had to use an IF because there're two conditions to check.
EDIT: Use this one if your cell formats are different:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$7,MATCH($A2*1,IF(Sheet1!$C$2:$C$7=B$1,Sheet1!$A$2:$A$7*1),0))
EDIT2: Adding trimming:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$7,MATCH($A2*1,IF(TRIM(Sheet1!$C$2:$C$7)=TRIM(B$1),Sheet1!$A$2:$A$7*1),0))
EDIT3: If you're using it on your full data, change the range:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$B:$B,MATCH($A2*1,IF(TRIM(Sheet1!$C:$C)=TRIM(B$1),Sheet1!$A:$A*1),0))
Assuming your Sheet1 looks like this:
And your Sheet2 looks like this:
The formula in Sheet2 cell B2 and copied over and down to cell C4 is:
=INDEX(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$7,MATCH(1,INDEX((Sheet1!$A$2:$A$7=$A2)*(Sheet1!$C$2:$C$7=B$1),),0))
Note that this is a regular formula, so no need for Ctrl+Shift+Enter
A helper column D is added to initial columns.
D2: =$A2 & $C2
Now it's possible to make a simple search of the concatenated SITE_ID and SUSE_CD:
H2: =MATCH($G2&" B";$D$2:$D$8;0)
The result would be a row number (=1 in this case) for the needed string in array $D$2:$D$8.
INDEX shows the value of the cell, found by counting n-th row (defined by MATCH) and m-th column (=2) in array $A2:$A$8 from the upper left cell (A2).
Altogether: =INDEX($A$2:$B$8;MATCH($G2&" B";$D$2:$D$8;0);2)
The easiest way to get around with this is,
to use concatenation operator in the match function.
Don't forget to use Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Use below formula in column B of Sheet 2
{=INDEX(Sheet1!$B:$B,MATCH(Sheet2!$A2&Sheet2!$B$1,Sheet1!$A:$A&Sheet1!$C:$C,0))}
And the below formula in column C of Sheet 2
{=INDEX(Sheet1!$B:$B,MATCH(Sheet2!$A2&Sheet2!$C$1,Sheet1!$A:$A&Sheet1!$C:$C,0))}
And then flash fill the remaining rows.

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