On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:51:05 -0700, Eric @ BP-EVV
wrote:

I am looking up an on-hand quantity from one table to populate another table
based on an item number. I have a couple of scenarios where VLookup is
bringing back the same value for both items, but when I look them up
manually, I find that the two items have a different on-hand value. For item
number UX2022U and UX2022U* I get the same on-hand returned....smae thing
goes for item numbers UX2022R and UX2022R*. The vlookup I am using is this:

=VLOOKUP(A828,'[ilicst 16-jul-08.xls]Sheet1'!$A$2:$I$10189,8,FALSE)

Doesn't the "FALSE" in the expression tell Excel to find an EXACT match ? I
think the '*' in the last position of my item number is causing Excel to
treat that like a wildcard and not find the EXACT match.

Any ideas on how to work around this ?

Thanks !


That is very strange. I've never run across it, but I can confirm it occurs in
Excel 2007. And it also occurs with the MATCH worksheet function. It doesn't
seem to be documented in HELP.

This **array-entered** formula seems to be one work-around:

=INDEX('[ilicst 16-jul-08.xls]Sheet1'!$A$2:$A$10189,MATCH(
TRUE,EXACT(A10,'[ilicst 16-jul-08.xls]Sheet1'!$H$2:$H$10189),0))

To **array-enter** a formula, hold down <ctrl<shift while hitting <enter.
Excel will place braces {...} around the formula.
--ron