That's true; but, of course, this is a problem for most search type
functions (FIND, SEARCH, InStr in VB, etc.). Of course, permitting these
items anywhere in the text seemed to be indicated given this example that
the OP included...

3 ,abcd, abcf, abcg,

where his inclusion of "abcg" (ignoring the commas) would seem to be your
FOOBAR case. I guess an argument could be made that at least the first one
might have to be located at the start of the text; but that were the
requirement, it could be covered by omitting the leading asterisk. in both
array strings.

Rick


"Harlan Grove" wrote in message
...
"Rick Rothstein \(MVP - VB\)" wrote...
Why not this...

=SUM(COUNTIF(A1:A5,{"*abcd*abcf*","*abcf*abcd*"} ))
...

Maybe in this particular case, but if these cells could contain values
like "abcde,abcFOOBAR" your formula would include them in the count
when they shouldn't be.