XL2000: How to Use Application.Match to Locate Date Values on a Worksheet

ID: Q213643

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 2000

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, you may run into problems if you use the Match method in a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro or procedure to locate date values on a worksheet. When you use a macro to search for dates, you need to search for the actual serial value of the date.

MORE INFORMATION

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In Microsoft Excel, each date is represented by a serialized number. If you are using the 1900 date system in Microsoft Excel 2000 the serial numbers range from 1 to 2958465, corresponding to the dates January 1, 1900, through December 31, 9999. If you are using the 1904 date system in earlier versions, the serial numbers range from 1 to 2957003, corresponding to January 1, 1904, through December 31, 9999.

To use a macro to match a date, use the serial value for the date as the lookup value when you use the Match function. You can acquire the serial value for a date by using the CLng function to convert the date to a long integer.

The following example shows how to search for a date (1/3/95) in cells A1 through A10 in sheet 1:

Open a new Excel Workbook.

Enter 1/3/95 in cell A2 of sheet 1.

Open the Visual Basic Editor by pressing ALT+F11.

On the Insert menu, click Module.

Enter the following code in the new module sheet:


Sub MatchDate()

    Dim TheDate As Date
    Dim Index As Variant

    TheDate = #1/3/95#

    ' Find a match for the serial value of the date in the range A1:A10
    ' on Sheet1.
    Index = Application.Match(CLng(TheDate), Range("Sheet1!A1:A10"), 0)

    ' Display the results.
    If IsError(Index) Then
        MsgBox "Not Found"
    Else
        MsgBox "Match item: " & Index
    End If
End Sub

Run the macro. Note that you receive the message "Match item: 2".

Additional query words: index match XL2000

Keywords : kbprg kbdta kbdtacode PgmHowto KbVBA
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto