Non-Duplicate highlighting Conditional Formatting behaviour

[Speshul]

Ok, so I am just playing around a little, and I was going to make some sample data to play with and decided to see what using every character would look like.


So, I used this formula:

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Which generates between 1 and 20 random characters using CHAR(1-255) randomly. Looks like I opened a JPEG in notepad.

So I was curious what the odds of this kind of string having a duplicate is, and noticed that non-duplicate values are being highlighted? Even if I paste-special values, unique values are lighting up red.

See screenshots

duplicates.PNG
duplicates2.jpg
duplicates3.jpg

I have these two values in cells right next to eachother, when I highlight only those two cells and select duplicates they both light up. However, if I do an =A1=A2 on them, I get a false?

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I am wondering what could cause this?

[Paul]

Strange, but notice how it's only the cells with a less-than or greater-than symbol at the start of the string. Excel is seeing that as a test, rather than part of the string apparently, which I confirmed in a simple two-cell test.

In A1 I put the string: '<s
In A2 I put the string: r

When applying the 'duplicate value' formatting to A1:A2, A1 shows up as a duplicate. If I change A2 to the letter t, the duplicate goes away since t is not <s. Same occurs if I make it '>s and change from t to m, or any letter combination that would fail/pass the test.

That's my theory.

[Speshul]

Interesting...that seems more like a bug than a feature in my opinion. Alert Microsoft!