Or just:-

=COUNTIF(A1:A100,"*cindy-lou*")

--
Regards
Ken....................... Microsoft MVP - Excel
Sys Spec - Win XP Pro / XL 97/00/02/03

----------
It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission :-)



"andy62" wrote:

The first one works great, thanks. The second one, I believe, is the
standard form for an exact match situation, not my "contains" case.

"Ron Coderre" wrote:

Try something like this:

For "contains"
=SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH("cindy lou",A1:A100)))

or

For a NON-case sensitive match
=SUMPRODUCT(--(A1:A100="cindy lou"))

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"andy62" wrote:

I need this component of my sumproduct function, "--(A1:A100=*Cindy Lou*)",
to return 1 when the string "Cindy Lou" is part of the cell in the range, and
0 when it is not. What I mean by "part of" is that the target cells in A1
thru A100 have multiple names separated by Alt-Enter. So if cell A1 has
three names separated by Alt-Enter and "Cindy Lou" is one of the three, I get
a 1 (True). I also need it to work if "Cindy Lou" is the only name in the
cell. I don't think it's as easy as using wildcard characters; can I do
something with the search or find functions?

Oh, and in the component I won't be quoting "Cindy Lou" specifically; it'll
be a variable (cell reference like D4).

Thanks!