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#1
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Count the number of names in a column
I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll
calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#2
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Count the number of names in a column
Try something like this:
=SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#3
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Count the number of names in a column
Yes! That works great. Thank you!!
"Ron Coderre" wrote: Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#4
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Count the number of names in a column
Ron,
I'm trying to understand your formula. For some reason, using the data provided by the OP, I get a #DIV/0! error. However, the COUNTIF portion gives the correct answer when used by itself without the SUMPRODUCT. Also, what purpose is served by the [&""] at the end? It seems to give the same answer with or without that. Thanks, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#5
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Count the number of names in a column
reproducing my answer of a couple of days ago ...
Let's start with a list that is being counted in A1:A10. Bob,John,Bob,Bob,John,John,Bob,Bill,Bill,Max The basic formula to count unique items is =SUMPRODUCT(1/COUNTIF($A$1:$A$10,$A$1:$A$10)) The COUNTIF($A$1:$A$10,$A$1:$A$10) part of the formula builds an array of the number of occurrences of each item, in this case{4;3;4;4;3;3;4;2;2;1}. As can be seen, each occurrence of the repeated value is counted, so there are four occurrences of Bob in the array. There will always be the same number of occurrences of value as the count of that value, unless two or more items are repeated the same number of times, in which case it will be some multiple of that count. Thus the item that is repeated 4 times has 4 instances of that count, dividing 1 by the count of 4, gives 0.25 4 times. The full array of values is {0.25;0.333333333333333;0.25;0.25;0.33333333333333 3;0.333333333333333;0.25;0 ..5;0.5;1}. The item that repeats 4 times sums to 1. The item that repeats 3 times also sums to 1. It should be clear from this that every value works in the same way and sums to 1. In other words, 1 is returned for every unique item. The sum of these values becomes the count of unique items. As our test range is A1:A20, and some of the items in A1:A20 are blank, extending this formula to A1:A20 would return a #DIV/0! Error. The reason for the error is blank cells in the full range A1:A20. Each blank cell returns a 0 value from the COUNTIF formula, which gives the #DIV/0! Error when divided into 1. The solution to this is to force it to count the empty cells as well, and not return a zero. 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. -- HTH Bob (there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my addy) "PCLIVE" wrote in message ... Ron, I'm trying to understand your formula. For some reason, using the data provided by the OP, I get a #DIV/0! error. However, the COUNTIF portion gives the correct answer when used by itself without the SUMPRODUCT. Also, what purpose is served by the [&""] at the end? It seems to give the same answer with or without that. Thanks, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#6
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Count the number of names in a column
First...to give credit where credit is due:
That formula was developed by Aladin Akyurek and Harlan Grove. Within that formula's context (A1:A10<"") checks if a cell value does not equal an empty string. It returns a 1 for non-blanks and a 0 for blanks. In the COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"") section, this part: A2:A10&"" ensures that the COUNTIF function will always return at least 1 and never 0 (which would cause the formula to error out when the division is performed.) Consequently, the numerator for blank cells is 0, so they are not counted. The numerator for all non-blanks is 1. The denominator for all non-blanks is their count. If a value appears 3 times, three of the numerators will be 1 and their respective denominators will be 3. The SUMPRODUCT function will add those three fractions: (1/3)+(1/3)+(1/3)=1 That's how the three occurrences only count as a single instance of a unique value. *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "PCLIVE" wrote: Ron, I'm trying to understand your formula. For some reason, using the data provided by the OP, I get a #DIV/0! error. However, the COUNTIF portion gives the correct answer when used by itself without the SUMPRODUCT. Also, what purpose is served by the [&""] at the end? It seems to give the same answer with or without that. Thanks, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#7
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Count the number of names in a column
The unique count formula used here was I believe first created as sum array
formula by former MVP David Hager =SUM(1/COUNTIF(A1:A100,A1:A100)) after that some things have been added to it with sumproduct etc but the basic idea is the 1/COUNTIF(Range.Range) There was another formula used at the same time using FREQUENCY -- Regards, Peo Sjoblom "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... First...to give credit where credit is due: That formula was developed by Aladin Akyurek and Harlan Grove. Within that formula's context (A1:A10<"") checks if a cell value does not equal an empty string. It returns a 1 for non-blanks and a 0 for blanks. In the COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"") section, this part: A2:A10&"" ensures that the COUNTIF function will always return at least 1 and never 0 (which would cause the formula to error out when the division is performed.) Consequently, the numerator for blank cells is 0, so they are not counted. The numerator for all non-blanks is 1. The denominator for all non-blanks is their count. If a value appears 3 times, three of the numerators will be 1 and their respective denominators will be 3. The SUMPRODUCT function will add those three fractions: (1/3)+(1/3)+(1/3)=1 That's how the three occurrences only count as a single instance of a unique value. *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "PCLIVE" wrote: Ron, I'm trying to understand your formula. For some reason, using the data provided by the OP, I get a #DIV/0! error. However, the COUNTIF portion gives the correct answer when used by itself without the SUMPRODUCT. Also, what purpose is served by the [&""] at the end? It seems to give the same answer with or without that. Thanks, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#8
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
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Count the number of names in a column
Thank you both, Ron and Bob, for the detailed explanations. After reading
your posts, I figured out that the reason the COUNTIF function, alone, appeared to be producing the correct answer was because there wasn't enough data. When I added one more name, I then got the wrong result. Thanks for helping me understand. Regards, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... First...to give credit where credit is due: That formula was developed by Aladin Akyurek and Harlan Grove. Within that formula's context (A1:A10<"") checks if a cell value does not equal an empty string. It returns a 1 for non-blanks and a 0 for blanks. In the COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"") section, this part: A2:A10&"" ensures that the COUNTIF function will always return at least 1 and never 0 (which would cause the formula to error out when the division is performed.) Consequently, the numerator for blank cells is 0, so they are not counted. The numerator for all non-blanks is 1. The denominator for all non-blanks is their count. If a value appears 3 times, three of the numerators will be 1 and their respective denominators will be 3. The SUMPRODUCT function will add those three fractions: (1/3)+(1/3)+(1/3)=1 That's how the three occurrences only count as a single instance of a unique value. *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "PCLIVE" wrote: Ron, I'm trying to understand your formula. For some reason, using the data provided by the OP, I get a #DIV/0! error. However, the COUNTIF portion gives the correct answer when used by itself without the SUMPRODUCT. Also, what purpose is served by the [&""] at the end? It seems to give the same answer with or without that. Thanks, Paul -- "Ron Coderre" wrote in message ... Try something like this: =SUMPRODUCT((A1:A10<"")/COUNTIF(A1:A10,A1:A10&"")) Adjust the range reference to suit your situation Does that help? *********** Regards, Ron XL2003, WinXP "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
#9
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Count the number of names in a column
To confirm, I have a copy of an article from something called "Inside Microsoft Office 95" dated September 1996 that covers a formula for counting unique value. A footnote states: "The formula presented in this article came from David Hagar, ..." -- Jim Cone San Francisco, USA http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware (Excel Add-ins / Excel Programming) "Peo Sjoblom" wrote in message ... The unique count formula used here was I believe first created as sum array formula by former MVP David Hager =SUM(1/COUNTIF(A1:A100,A1:A100)) after that some things have been added to it with sumproduct etc but the basic idea is the 1/COUNTIF(Range.Range) There was another formula used at the same time using FREQUENCY -- Regards, Peo Sjoblom |
#10
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Count the number of names in a column
Here are a few different ways of doing the same thing:
=SUMPRODUCT((A2:A998<"")/(COUNTIF(A2:A998,A2:A998)+(A2:A998=""))) =SUM(IF(FREQUENCY(IF(LEN(A2:A999)0,MATCH(A2:A999, A2:A999,0),""),IF(LEN(A2:A999)0,MATCH(A2:A999,A2: A999,0),""))0,1)) =SUMPRODUCT((A2:A105<"")/COUNTIF(A2:A105,A2:A105&"")*(A2:A105<"")) =SUMPRODUCT(--(A2:A999<""),1/COUNTIF(A2:A999,A2:A999&"")) =SUM(--(FREQUENCY(IF(A2:A2705<"",MATCH(A2:A2705,A2:A2705 ,0)),ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&ROWS(A2:A2705))))0)) ***watch out for word wrap*** Sometimes I use a few different functions, which do the same thing, just to confirm that the answer I get is the correct answer. It is highly unlikely that you will make a mistake a few times, and get exactly the same results. There are lots of spreadsheets being used for lots of purposes, and many out there contain mistakes. Caution, and overall good judgment, cant be overstated. Ryan--- "James" wrote: I have a worksheet that lists names in one column. Is there a formula that'll calculate the number of people represented? For example, column A lists: Fred Tony Fred Fred Max The five cells represent 3 people. I'm looking for a formula that'll tell me the list represents 3 people. Thanks for your help! |
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