On 03/01/2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I am using version 2.3 of OpenOffice.org. My problem is : the use of
> wildcards.
> In Excel, a count can include a wildcard (such as "*data*") on either side
> of the data to be searched for. When that is opened in OpenOffice.org,
> the
> * can only be used after the data ("data*") in order for the count to
> recognize the data searched for. In OpenOffice.org "*data*" returns a
> count
> of '0'. Is there a fix for this? Thank you.
>
> =COUNTIF(A5:A10;"*DATANAME*")
You can use *patterns* specified as Regular Expressions within the text to
find. Thus the expression
=COUNTIF(A5:A10;".*DATANAME.*")
does what you want, ".*DATANAME.*" being the appropriate pattern.
Regular Expressions provide a standard, OS independent way of specifying
patterns. For details, Google is your friend. It's a shame Microsoft has
chosen not to implement them within more of its software, particularly MS
Office.
In researching this I found that the FIND and SEARCH functions, designed to
return the starting position of a string of text within another string of
text, both return errors ("#VALUE!") if the text does not exist. I have
filed Issue #84954 to document this. Please vote ...
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
Please reply *only* to [email protected]
