Difference between revisions of "Documentation/How Tos/Calc: FIND function"

Revision as of 15:24, 18 July 2013

FIND

Returns the position of a string of text within another string.

Syntax:

FIND(findtext; texttosearch; startposition)

returns the character position of the first occurrence of findtext within texttosearch.

startposition (optional) is the position from which the search starts.

The search is case-sensitive. For case-insensitive search, see SEARCH().

The search will not use regular expressions. For searching with regular expressions, see SEARCH().

A failed search gives the #VALUE! error.

In Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org Calc - Calculate the setting for Search criteria = and <> must apply to whole cells has no effect.

Example:

FIND("yo"; "Yoyo")

returns 3.

FIND("cho"; "choochoo"; 2)

returns 5.

FIND("xyz","abcdef",1)

returns #VALUE!.

NOTE: This is an error condition, which must be 'handled' if used as the argument to another function.

IF( FIND("xyz","abcdef",1) , "Substring Present", "ERR: Missing Substring" )

returns #VALUE! which is not very useful, therefore we could use either ISERROR() or ISNUMBER() for example:

IF( ISERROR( FIND("xyz","abcdef",1) ) , "ERR: Missing Substring", "Substring Present" ).

returns "ERR: Missing Substring" (... allowing the IF() to function, and not propagating the error from the FIND() function.

IF( ISNUMBER( FIND("xyz","abcdef",1) ) , "Substring Present", "ERR: Missing Substring" ).

returns "ERR: Missing Substring" (... allowing the IF() to function, and not propagating the error from the FIND() function.

NOTE: In practice, it may be more maintainable to use ISNUMBER() to avoid negative logic, and it is more indicative of the evaluation desired: if the substring has a position, then ISNUMBER() is TRUE, else ISNUMBER() is FALSE.