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Just curious. What does this syntax mean? I used it in one of my formulas an I've seen nothing like it.
Just curious. What does this syntax mean? I used it in one of my formulas an I've seen nothing like it.
Last edited by rcork23; 01-04-2016 at 04:32 PM.
Generally, it is used as a "wild card" meaning it can represent one or more non-specific characters.
Regards, TMS
Trevor Shuttleworth - Retired Excel/VBA Consultant
I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned
'Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry' John Cooper Clarke
Certain Excel formulas can use wildcard characters to match one or more characters.
Typically, a question mark (?) will match any single character. An asterisk (*) will match zero or more characters.
Example:
for a list of month names:
Data Range
this formula returns the count of months that begin with "J"
this formula returns the count of month names that have "a" as the second letter
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In addition to the above asterisk (*) is also used with some array formulas like SUMPRODUCT and other constructs as an AND operator.
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A search revealed that the following functions support the use of wildcards ("*").
FUNCTION VERSION AVERAGEIF Excel 2007 and later AVERAGEIFS Excel 2007 and later COUNTIF all versions of Excel COUNTIFS Excel 2007 and later HLOOKUP all versions of Excel MATCH all versions of Excel SEARCH all versions of Excel SUMIF all versions of Excel SUMIFS Excel 2007 and later SUMPRODUCT all versions of Excel VLOOKUP all versions of Excel
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Just to preface, our formula works just as it should i'm just confused as to why.. ha
So if my formula is COUNTIF(D:D,"*"& J17 &"*" Where Column D is our target range in which we are finding the duplicates. J17 is the String in which we wanted to count.
What is the purpose of the Wild Card? (It wont work with out the Wild Card in quotes)
That formula counts the number of referenced cells that contain the J17 text, anywhere in its contents.
Last edited by Ron Coderre; 01-04-2016 at 04:53 PM.
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