Hi Bill

for details on the SUMPRODUCT function itself check out
http://www.xldynamic.com/source/xld.SUMPRODUCT.html

and here's a link to a newsgroup post by Bob Phillips where he explains the
double unary (--) and quotes a post by Harlan Grove on the subject
http://tinyurl.com/bv42x

(good luck!)
--
Cheers
JulieD
check out www.hcts.net.au/tipsandtricks.htm
....well i'm working on it anyway
"Bill Martin -- (Remove NOSPAM from address)"
wrote in message ...
JulieD wrote:
Hi James

try
=SUMPRODUCT(--(LEN(B1:C38)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B1:C38,0,""))))

where 0 is the number you're looking for.

this will return 5 for the following
.......B.............C
1....100...........30
2......5.............500


=============

What's the "--" do Julie? I tried to look it up in the Excel Help system
but it won't fess up that such a function exists. Nor do I stumble across
anything about it in the "Excel 97 Bible" as an operator or as a function.
And it's not described by Excel under the SUMPRODUCT function.

Bill