Mac,

The best solution is to pick the values that you pass to the MIN function. For example:

=MIN(A2:A10,A13:A15,A20:A30,A41:A49)

where you only include the 'special objects'. (The example above skips cells A11:A12, A16:A19, and
A31:A40)

To find the row where the value is found, use

=MATCH(A50,A2:A49,False)


HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP


"Mac" wrote in message
...
Assume four columns - A, B, C, D, filled with values (double prec. format);
assume a row (R50), which shows a min() value for each of the columns; assume
another row (R51), which shows a sum() of the four values in R50; assume
another row (R52) which, via index() and match(), shows the row positions of
the data values that generate the result in R51; generally - what I'm
searching this way is the smallest possible aggregate of four values, one
from each column.. The problem: sometimes the values at coordinates shown in
R52 are not 'valid' (the data values are parameters of objects and only
special objects can be put together) and in that case, I need to retreive the
'next smallest aggregate' following the one in R51. I think of an algo:
(((each A sum each B) sum each C) sum each D) = we have a set of all
possible sums; sort this set ascending; pick first, pick second, ....; but:

1.) how to do this??

2.)for 50 values in each column this would generate a huge set of values;
can you do in Excel like - hold this set in memory and only give my worksheet
the results?

3.)even if I get to picking the e.g. five smallest sums of the set, how do I
find out the row coordinates of the values that generated this sum?

Can someone please help me to solve this beast of a problem?