Nice to see the minimilist method is the only solution
:)
My answer to the original is Why, what's wrong with * (-1) ?

Steve

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:17:00 -0000, Mike
wrote:

=MID(A1,MIN(IF(ISERROR(1*(MID(A1,ROW(INDIRECT("A1: A"&LEN(A1))),1))),255,ROW(INDIRECT("A1:A"&LEN(A1)) ))),99)

entered as an array

"Dave F" wrote:

How about

=IF(A1*A1=1,A1*A1,SQRT(A1*A1))

Dave
--
A hint to posters: Specific, detailed questions are more likely to be
answered than questions that provide no detail about your problem.


"Mike" wrote:

another thought occurs

=SQRT(A1*A1)

"bmmclen" wrote:

There has to be a way to do this other than multiplying by -1???