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

Revision as of 10:58, 6 October 2010

COUNTIF

Counts the number of cells in a range that meet a specified condition.

Syntax:

COUNTIF(test_range; condition)

test_range is the range to be tested.

condition may be:

a number, such as 34.5

an expression, such as 2/3 or SQRT(B5)

a text string

COUNTIF counts those cells in test_range that are equal to condition, unless condition is a text string that starts with a comparator:

>, <, >=, <=, =, <>

In this case COUNTIF compares those cells in test_range with the remainder of the text string (interpreted as a number if possible or text otherwise).

For example the condition “>4.5” tests if the content of each cell is greater than the number 4.5, and the condition “<dog” tests if the content of each cell would come alphabetically before the text dog.

It can be very important to check the settings on the Tools menu – Options - OpenOffice.org Calc - Calculate dialog:

If the checkbox is ticked for search criteria = and <> must apply to whole cells, then the condition “red” will match only red; if unticked it will match red, Fred, red herring.

If the checkbox is ticked for Enable regular expressions in formulas, the condition will match using regular expressions - so for example "r.d" will match red, rod, rid, and "red.*" will match red, redraw, redden.

The checkbox for Case sensitive has no effect (no attention is paid to case). See the examples for how to achieve a case sensitive match.

Blank (empty) cells in test_range are ignored (they never satisfy the condition).

condition can only specify one single condition. See Conditional Counting and Summation for ways to specify multiple conditions.

Example:

COUNTIF(C2:C8; ">=20")

returns the number of cells in C2:C8 whose contents are numerically greater than or equal to 20.

COUNTIF(C2:C8; F1)

where F1 contains the text >=20, returns the same number.

COUNTIF(C2:C8; "<"&F2)

where F2 contains 20 returns the number of cells in C2:C8 whose contents are numerically less than 20. (Advanced topic: this works because the & operator converts the content of F2 to text, and concatenates it with "<"; COUNTIF then converts it back to a number).

COUNTIF(A2:A8; ">=P")

returns the number of cells in A2:A8 whose contents begin with the letter P or later in the alphabet.

COUNTIF(B2:B8; "red")

returns the number of cells in B2:B8 containing red, but this number may depend on the option settings discussed above.

Advanced topic:

COUNTIF(B2:B8; ".+")

returns the number of cells in B2:B8 containing one or more character, e.g. not blank, using the syntax of regular expressions.

SUMPRODUCT(B2:B8="Red").

returns the number of cells in B2:B8 matching Red, with case sensitivity. See Conditional Counting and Summation for details.

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