XL: Counting Occurrence of a Character in Selection

• Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 2.x, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0
• Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0
• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
• Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0
• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, you can use a macro to count the occurrences of a specific character in a cell, or range of cells. You can also use a formula to accomplish the task.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

   http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/default.asp

Sample Visual Basic Procedure

The following Visual Basic procedure prompts you for a character (or characters), then searches through the currently selected cell, or range of cells, and displays a message box showing the total number of occurrences of that character or character string. This works for all alphanumeric characters.

   Dim Count As Integer
   Dim Target As String
   Dim Cell As Object
   Dim N As Integer

   Sub Target_Count()
      Count = 0
      Target = InputBox("character(s) to find?")
      If Target = "" Then GoTo Done
         For Each Cell In Selection
            N = InStr(1, cell.Value, target)
            While N <> 0
               Count = count + 1
               N = InStr(n + 1, cell.Value, target)
            Wend
         Next Cell
      MsgBox count & " Occurrences of " & target
   Done:
   End Sub

Microsoft Excel 4.0 Macro

The following macro example prompts you for a character, then searches through the currently selected cell, or range of cells, and displays a message box showing the total number of occurrences of that character. This works for all alphanumeric characters.

   A1 :  count=0
   A2 :  target=INPUT("Enter character to count: ",2)
   A3 :  =IF(or(target="",target=false),HALT())
   A4 :  = FOR.CELL("TheCell")
   A5 :  =  FOR("counter",1,LEN(TheCell))
   A6 :  =   IF(MID(TheCell,counter,1)=target)
   A7 :       count=count+1
   A8 :  =   END.IF()
   A9 :  =  NEXT()
   A10: =NEXT()
   A11: =ALERT("Occurrences of "&target&": "&count)
   A12: =RETURN()

   {=SUM(LEN(range)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(range,"a","")))}

If you are concerned about a single cell, this could be simplified to:

   =LEN(range)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(range,"a",""))

   {=SUM(LEN(range)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(range,"text","")))/LEN("text")}

REFERENCES

For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q163435
   TITLE     : VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for
               Applications