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Formula to count the number of unique text values from a list.

  1. #1
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    Question Formula to count the number of unique text values from a list.

    Hello Everyone,

    Just joined this forum.

    I Googled out the below formula that counts the number of unique text values from a list. While it does work perfectly fine, but i am unable to understand the logic working behind this formula, especially the reason for using SUMPRODUCT function and A:A&"".

    =SUMPRODUCT((A:A<>"")/COUNTIF(A:A,A:A&""))-1

    Any explanation will be greatly appreciated.

  2. #2
    Forum Guru benishiryo's Avatar
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    Re: Formula to count the number of unique text values from a list.

    welcome to the forum, PritishD. first of all, you shouldn't be using the whole column if you are using array formulas & SUMPRODUCT is one of them. reason is because it will slow down the workbook as such formulas work very hard.

    to illustrate, here's some data to explain better:
    Data Range
    A
    1
    Name
    2
    A
    3
    B
    4
    5
    A
    6
    A
    7
    8
    B
    9
    B
    10
    C

    so your formula would be:
    =SUMPRODUCT((A2:A10<>"")/COUNTIF(A2:A10,A2:A10&""))
    not sure why the minus 1 is there. is it for your header? so first select this portion in the formula bar & press F9 to calculate
    (A2:A10<>"")
    you don't want to count blanks as a unique value. so the above will give you a bunch of TRUEs & FALSEs on whether those cells does not equal to blanks
    {TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;TRUE}
    so A2 is not. A3 is not. A4 is a blank. and so on

    not sure if you know 1/0 in Excel gives you an error #DIV/0. and if you have a blank cell, excel returns a 0. you can try highlighting this in the formula bar & press F9 to see:
    A2:A10
    {"A";"B";0;"A";"A";0;"B";"B";"C"}

    so the A2:A10&"" prevents that. it makes those zeroes become blanks. try highlighting this portion & press F9
    A2:A10&""
    {"A";"B";"";"A";"A";"";"B";"B";"C"}

    now select this portion & press F9
    COUNTIF(A2:A10,A2:A10&"")
    it will give you multiple results like this (9 results to be exact)
    {3;3;2;3;3;2;3;3;1}
    what it does is to count how many times A2 appeared in A2:A10. that will give you 3. cause "A" appeared 3 times.
    it then counts how many times A3 appeared in A2:A10. that will still give you 3. cause "B" appeared 3 times.
    counts how many times A4 appeared in A2:A10. that will still give you 2. cause "" appeared 2 times.
    and so on.

    so you have the 1st part of TRUEs & FALSEs (which Excel sees as 1 & 0) divided by the 2nd part of how many times each cell appears.
    {TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;FALSE;TRUE;TRUE;TRUE}
    divided by:
    {3;3;2;3;3;2;3;3;1}
    so that's 1/3, 1/3, 0/2, 1/3... and so on
    that gives you a fraction of each cells. try selecting this section & press F9
    (A2:A10<>"")/COUNTIF(A2:A10,A2:A10&"")
    {0.333333333333333;0.333333333333333;0;0.333333333333333;0.333333333333333;0;0.333333333333333;0.333333333333333;1}
    so that's actually telling you A2 is 0.33 (1/3) of how the total times "A" appeared.
    A3 is also 1/3 of how many times "B" appeared
    A4 is 0.
    and so on...

    as the above are multiple array results of 1/3, zeroes & 1, you need a function to add them up. that is the SUMPRODUCT. so if you have 3 "A"s, that is 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3. 3 "B"s is the same. that gives you 2. "C" is 1 as it only appeared once. that is a total of 3 unique values.

    hope that helps

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  3. #3
    Forum Expert Pepe Le Mokko's Avatar
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    Re: Formula to count the number of unique text values from a list.

    I see there still is confusion between unique and distinct values...
    Distinct values = all values whether they appear once or more
    Unique values = values that appear only once

  4. #4
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    Re: Formula to count the number of unique text values from a list.

    Thanks benishiryo. And yes, that -1 is for the header.

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