I read a thread and got lost so I decide to start my own thread.

I have seen &"" quite a bit (e.g. in a COUNTIF or MATCH formula) but I have never seen &"~" until now. Some of you may be aware that I like to experiment a lot. So, here I go again.

Min text value:
=LOOKUP(2,1/(COUNTIF(A1:A5,"<"&A1:A5&"~")=1),A1:A5)

I took out the ~ and use a space instead and I got the same correct result.
I took out the ~ and did NOT leave a space i.e. "" and I got the *second* smallest value and not the min. I am surprised that this doesn't work as originally we have "" (w/o space) in the following formula.

=LOOKUP(2,1/((COUNTIF(rng,"<"&rng)=0)*(rng<"")),rng)

Max text value:
=LOOKUP(2,1/(COUNTIF(A1:A5,""&A1:A5&"~")=0),A1:A5)

Regardless of whether I use "~", " " (with space) or "" (w/o space), I got the same correct result (i.e. the max). Why does "" work for max and not min?

I am going to make this more confusing for myself. Is there a connection between "~" and what Bob P. wrote previously? If not, can someone give me an explanation similar to the following so that I can understand "~"?

Adding &"" to the end of the COUNTIF formula forces a count
of the blanks. This addition on its own removes the #DIV/0! error, but will
cause the blanks to be counted as a unique item. A further addition to the formula
resolves this by testing for those blanks. Instead of dividing the array of
counts into 1 each time, adding the test creates an array of TRUE/FALSE
values to be divided by the equivalent element in the counts array. Each
blank will resolve to FALSE in the dividend array, and the count of the
blanks in the divisor array. The result of this will be 0, so the blanks do
not get counted. <<

I appreciate all the help I can get as I am very lost now.

Epinn