Date: prev next · Thread: first prev next last
2010 Archives by date, by thread · List index


VLOOKUP and COUNTIF will not find a numeric search value in a list of text
cells. They will, however, find a text value in a list of numeric cells. Why
one way but not the other? I am not a fan of strong typing in end-user
applications (it's fine for programming languages, but not all spreadsheet
users have a programmer's mindset or dilligence).

At least VLOOKUP and COUNTIF are mutually consistent - Excel will not work
either way in VLOOKUP, but works both ways (text in a list of numbers, and
number in a list of texts) in COUNTIF.

Having said that - if the list contains the text being looked for and the
same value as a number, then COUNTIF as text will find both and return 2. If
looking for it as a number, it only finds one of them. So, is 1 in the list
once or twice? That depends on how you look. Not ideal. This inconsistency
raises this behaviour from a "feature" to a "bug" in my opinion.

Phil.
-- 
Don't you just hate self-referential sigs?

-- 
E-mail to users+help@libreoffice.org for instructions on how to unsubscribe
List archives are available at http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/users/
All messages you send to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted

Context


Privacy Policy | Impressum (Legal Info) | Copyright information: Unless otherwise specified, all text and images on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This does not include the source code of LibreOffice, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). "LibreOffice" and "The Document Foundation" are registered trademarks of their corresponding registered owners or are in actual use as trademarks in one or more countries. Their respective logos and icons are also subject to international copyright laws. Use thereof is explained in our trademark policy.