Comments on: VLOOKUP

By: Dick Kusleika

Dick Kusleika — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:24:00 +0000

Good one Justin. Sally, if you're using 2003 or earlier, use

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP("XYZ", MyTable, 2, FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP("XYZ", MyTable, 2, FALSE))

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Sally, are you using a version of Excel prior to 2007? Sounds to me like IFERROR isn’t being recognised otherwise you wouldn’t see the error as the IFERROR would pick it up. Wow that sounded complicated!

By: sally

sally — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:57:00 +0000

I am trying to write what i think is a simple vlookup IFERROR(VLOOKUP("XYZ", MyTable, 2, FALSE),"") and it returns #NAME? error. Not all the values the formula is looking up is in the table, is there a better way to write this formula?

By: Dawood Mamedoff

Dawood Mamedoff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:19:00 +0000

Yes, the last argument is not mandatory, however I always tend to set it as "false". It's easy then to get rid of those #N/A! simply by finding them and replacing with blank field.

This tutorial also helped me much to understand how vlookup works:

http://www.myhowtoos.com/en/excel-howtoos/84-how-to-match-values-in-excel-using-vlookup

By: Charles Williams

Charles Williams — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:02:00 +0000

Zach,

If there is a real-world possibility of looking for a value smaller than the smallest value in the list and you want to trap the #N/A for that special case then you are correct: either add an error trap or a dummy very small entry in the list.

By: zach

zach — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Charles,

Nice. Wish I would've thought of that before resorting to the INDEX/MATCH pair. But you would still need an error trap for the #N/A that you get if you are looking for a value smaller than the smallest value in your sorted list.

By: MacroMan

MacroMan — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Great tip, thanks.

By: Jan Karel Pieterse

Jan Karel Pieterse — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Yep, it does need the extra INDEX of course.

I submitted the reply too fast. Well spotted guys.

By: Charles Williams

Charles Williams — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:35:00 +0000

Jan Karel's idea is correct, but it does need the additional INDEX.

For Dick's original question the fastest way to do VLOOKUP on SORTED data when there may not be an exact match is:

=IF(VLOOKUP("XYZ", MyTable, 1, TRUE)="XYZ",VLOOKUP("XYZ", MyTable, 2, TRUE),"")

The first approximate VLOOKUP tests to see if the lookup value exists in the table by checking if the value returned from the lookup column is the same as the value you are looking for. If it is then it exists so you can do the VLOOKUP again to return the value from the answer column, but otherwise return "".

You can use the same idea with INDEX and MATCH.

But the data MUST be sorted.

By: fzz

fzz — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:21:00 +0000

zach, the other problem Dick mentioned was the limitation that 2007's IFERROR traps ALL errors, not just #N/A. If you try to use IFERROR on MATCH's result, what's the result when MATCH returns #N/A? If you use an augmented table, as I suggested before, you could use a 2007 formula like

=INDEX(MyTable,IFERROR(MATCH("XYZ",INDEX(MyTable,0,1),0),1),2)

The problem with MATCH or VLOOKUP calls against sorted tables is that it's still possible for MATCH or VLOOKUP to return errors when the lookup value is less than the value in the first column of the first row of the table. IOW, bullet proofing requires

=IF(x IF(INDEX(MyTable,MATCH(x,INDEX(MyTable,0,1)),1)x,"",
INDEX(MyTable,MATCH(x,INDEX(MyTable,0,1)),1)))