"Harlan Grove" wrote in message
...

When have I ever shied away from a debatable point?!

You Harlan - never!!

to catch errors all the time. Consistency is a virtue

So your argument is that because SUM() ignores text, all functions should
ignore text?

Perhaps if we are using it as a SUM() function, but here are we not in fact
using, (or misusing), it as a VLOOKUP() which does return errors at times.
So in that instance is it not more consistent to return errors than to
ignore them?

--
Regards,

Sandy
In Perth, the ancient capital of Scotland
and the crowning place of kings


Replace @mailinator.com with @tiscali.co.uk


"Harlan Grove" wrote in message
...
"Sandy Mann" wrote...
Harlan Grove" wrote in message
I'm not a purist about separating all terms in SUMPRODUCT, but there's
some value in separating the values summed from the criteria, so

Debatable point. There seems to be a trend for people in the NG's to
recommend comma separation which, I have read, is slighly faster but I
have always been of the opinion that I would rather see an error returned
than a zero which may go unnoticed. . . .

When have I ever shied away from a debatable point?!

Depends on whether one wants a numeric result from

=SUMPRODUCT((Condition1)*...*(ConditionN),RangeToB eSummed)

when

=SUM(RangeToBeSummed)

produces a numeric result. If so, then better to use commas. If not, then
it begs the question whether simple SUM formulas should always be changed
to

=SUMPRODUCT(--RangeToBeSummed)

to catch errors all the time. Consistency is a virtue.