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excelstringsearchsubstringcontains

Find exact substring in cell using excel formula


I have the string "L5+L6+L7+L10" in a cell, and then I have a column with the values L1, L2, ... , L10 on each cell. I need to know which of those values are contained in the main string but with an exact match.

To solve my problem, I tried the formula =IF(ISNUM(SEARCH(B3;$F$2));"Found";"Not found") and the results I get are shown in this image.

enter image description here

However, this results are incorrect because I need only L5, L6, L7 and L10 to be found, and not L1.

Is there a way to do so only using excel formulas?


Solution

  • Just add the "+" to the beginning and end of the strings inside the search:

    =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("+"&B3&"+","+"&$F$3&"+")),"Found","Not found")
    

    enter image description here