Re: [libreoffice-users] IF w/ Regular Expression

At 08:45 08/02/2013 -0800, Joel Madero wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
> > 2013/2/8 Brian Barker:
> > > At 14:05 07/02/2013 -0800, Joel Madero wrote:
> > > > I have enabled regular expressions in 
> > > > LibreOffice settings but still am  unable to 
> > > > get this one to work. Here is my line:
> > > > IF(N200="*regression*",1,0)
> > > >
> > > > Not sure what I'm missing.
> > >
> > > What you are missing, I think, is defining 
> > > your problem!  You have fallen into the error 
> > > that is not at all uncommon amongst 
> > > enquirers.  You have shown us a formula which 
> > > you tell us does not work.  You have not told 
> > > us what you were hoping it would do for you, 
> > > leaving us to guess from the formula 
> > > itself.  But the one thing we can be 
> > > absolutely sure of - we have your assurance 
> > > for this - is that this formula does not 
> > > define what you are trying to do, since it does not succeed.
> > >
> > > In any case, I don't know what regular 
> > > expression you think you have supplied here: 
> > > the asterisk is used to match zero or more of 
> > > the character preceding it.  There is no 
> > > character before your first asterisk; as 
> > > regards the second, are you expecting a match 
> > > for *regressio, along with *regression, *regressionn, *regressionnn, and so on?
> > >
> > > The IF() function is a bit of a red 
> > > herring.  The essence of your formula is the 
> > > logical expression N200="*regression*".  This 
> > > has a logical result (which, incidentally, is 
> > > identical to the result of your IF).  But 
> > > there is no facility to invoke regular 
> > > expressions in the logical "=" operator: it 
> > > will give the answer TRUE (or 1) if and only 
> > > if the two operands are equal.  So you should 
> > > get TRUE or 1 if N200 is exactly "*regression*" and FALSE or 0 otherwise.
> > >
> > > There are a number of functions which allow 
> > > regular expressions (see the help text), but "=" is not one of them.
> >
> > Very funny indeed.
> > The rest of us, who hopefully are thinking 
> > creatures, realise that he accidently gave an 
> > example of ”wild cards” while talking about 
> > regular expressions. Since he was talking about 
> > regular expressions all the time, I think most 
> > people would assume that that is what he meant, 
> > and that the example probably was a typo or 
> > that he don't know the difference. Yet…
> >
> > Anyway, … never mind, I don't have time for this.
>
> I actually went to bed thinking "crap, that 
> email wasn't very clear " lol. My apologies indeed, I should know better!
>
> So I have a column N that has keywords, some of 
> them are blank, some of them have items such as 
> "regression" or "regression, bibisect" or "bibisect, regression" etc...
>
> What I want to do is have a column O that has a 
> 1 if ANY TEXT in column N is equal to 
> "regression" so all three of the above strings would show a 1.
>
> Clear?

For what it's worth, my "funny" reply was meant 
quite seriously: I wasn't being sarcastic.

Yes: quite clear this time.  Try:
=NOT(ISERROR(FIND("regression";Nn)))
(Regular expressions not involved.)  This will 
populate your column with TRUE and FALSE; if you 
prefer, you can change these to 1 and 0 simply by 
formatting the column appropriately as Number.

I trust this helps a little more.

Brian Barker


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