Comments on: COUNTIF Bug

By: MCD

MCD — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:01:00 +0000

If you want to add to the confusion try this similar RIGHT bug...
type "'1234567890123456789? in A1, then run these formulas against it:
=RIGHT(A1,10) and =TEXT(RIGHT(A1,10)
I get "0123456789? for the =RIGHT formula and
I get "123456789? for the =TEXT(RIGHT) formula

To add some more confusion, add a "0? to the end of the text in A1 and check the answers; they match
Keep going - add a "1? to the end of the text and they still match!
Keep going - add "2?-"9? and when you reach "9?, they don't match again!

Those darn 9's!!!

By: MCD

MCD — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:55:00 +0000

This returns 3 as well:
=COUNTIF(A1:A3,CONCATENATE(TEXT(LEFT($A$1,15),"0?),TEXT(RIGHT($A$1,3),"0?)))

By: talay.pr

talay.pr — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:08:00 +0000

my condition have 19 digit , it error too .
I use data > consolidate to slove my FS problem.
Thanks infos.

By: Cosh

Cosh — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:06:00 +0000

Excel is a good tool for performing basic addition and subtraction, and occasionally multiplication and division. For complex engineering problems, cancer research, and science problems, I would not use Excel. The results are simply untrustworthy and highly unstable.

By: Heles Eugene

Heles Eugene — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Hi,
referring to »countif bug»
Enter this formula in B1:

=COUNTIF(A1:A3,A1) I agree returns 3 ?? why don't know
but if countif(a1:A1,A3) you get »your» 1
see you online
regards
Eugène

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:27:00 +0000

Gianni -

"maybe in order to lower its memory usage"

More likely an assumption that if something in a spreadsheet looks like a number, you want to treat it in a calculation as a number.

By: Gianni G

Gianni G — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:00:00 +0000

It seems that excel converts text strings that contain only numbers into number format before doing any calculations, maybe in order to lower its memory usage…

By: fzz

fzz — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:03:00 +0000

I get 3 using Excel 2003 SP1.

This is just how COUNTIF works. It's second argument is ALWAYS treated as a string, even when it's entered as a number. That's why it didn't matter whether its second argument was a reference to A1 or the text value of A1.

This functionality leads to ambiguity. When COUNTIF's second argument is a number, it matches both numbers AND text strings in its first argument range that have the same text representation. Enter 1 as a number in D1, ="1? in D2 and leave D3 blank. The formulas

=COUNTIF(D1:D3,1)

and

=COUNTIF(D1:D3,"1?)

both return 2 while the formulas

=SUMPRODUCT((D1:D3=1))

and

=SUMPRODUCT((D1:D3="1?))

both return 1. Since =1="1? returns FALSE, it's COUNTIF that provides unusual functionality.

With the original 18-digit strings in A1:A3, COUNTIF's second argument is interpretted as a string, but since that argument looks like a number, COUNTIF proceeds to interpret it as a number, and that's the point at which it's munged into 15 decimal digits of precision. It does the same thing for the values in A1:A3, converting them to numbers, thus ignoring their last 3 digits.

There's an imperfect work-around: force Excel to treat these values as text by using

=COUNTIF(A1:A3,A1&"*")-COUNTIF(A1:A3,A1&"?*")

which forces COUNTIF to treat all cells in A1:A3 as text, and the second COUNTIF call reduces the count for any cells in A2:A3 that contained A1 as a proper leading substring.

By: TKT-Tang

TKT-Tang — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:11:00 +0000

1. Countif() has a mind of its own amidst many other things.

2. May force the numeric string to text by, ="123456789012345111? ; and yet, Countif takes that to be a number still, 1.23456789^+17 (Excel-2000, server version).

3. At long last, the numeric string may be cast in the stone of text by,
=Char(28 to 31)&"123456789012345111? or =Char(160)&"123456789012345111? (amongst other possibilities ?!).

4. Regards.

By: Paul B

Paul B — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 04:10:00 +0000

John, I also get the right answer using Excel 2002(10.6501.6626) SP3