Excel: Check if cell string value exists in column, and get all cell references to that string

Question

I suspect this may be a job for VBA, which is beyond my abilities. But here's the scenario:

Column A in Sheet 1 (CAS1) contains x rows of text values

Column A in Sheet 2 (CAS2) contains x rows of text values

Part A - For each row value in CAS1, I need to know if the string is contained in any of the cells in CAS2. Not exact match, the string can be only part of the searched cells.

Part B - I need to know the cell value of each cell in CAS2 that contains the CAS1 value (if they do exist, they can be listed in the cells adjacent to the cell being searched in CAS1).

I've tried the following to attempt Part A, all to no avail:

vlookup(A1,sheet2!A:A,1,false)
NOT(ISNA(MATCH(A1,sheet2!A:A,0)))
ISNUMBER(MATCH(A1,sheet2!A:A,0))
COUNTIF(sheet2!A:A,A1)>0 
IF(ISERROR(MATCH(A1,sheet2!A:A, 0)), "No Match", "Match")

I know some of the cell values in CAS2 contain the cell values in CAS1, so I don't know why they return false or No Match. I suspect it may be down to the nature of the text content. So here's some sample data:

CAS1

LQ056
RV007H
RV008
RV009H
TSN304
TSN305

CAS2

RV009-satin-nickel-CO.jpg
STR314.jpg
STR315.jpg
HCY001.jpg
RV008-oval-rad-CO.jpg
HCY001-BRAC006.jpg

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This problem can be faced through VBA (at least, I imagine the VBA solution much more easily than the possible Excel one). You need a macro that, for each row in CAS1, search the content in each row of CAS2 and returns you the address.

For Each cell In Sheets("CAS1").Range("A1:A" & Sheets("CAS1").Range("A1").End(xlDown).Row) '<-- check each cell of the range A1:A? of sheet CAS1 (adapt "A" and "1" if they're different)
    recFound = 0 '<-- count how many findings there are
    For Each cell2 In Sheets("CAS2").Range("A1:A" & Sheets("CAS2").Range("A1").End(xlDown).Row) '<-- check in each cell of the range A1:A? of sheet CAS2 (adapt "A" and "1" if they're different)
        If InStr(cell2.Value, cell.Value) <> 0 Then '<-- if the value in cell is contained in the value in cell2..
            recFound = recFound + 1 '<-- account the new finding
            cell.Offset(0, recFound) = Split(cell2.Address, "$")(1) & Split(cell2.Address, "$")(2) '<--write the address on the right of the currently searched cell
        End If
    Next cell2
Next cell

All the above should be enclosed in a macro, eg Sub makeMySearch() , that should be run to get the results. As commented in my code, I'm assuming that data are in A1:A? of both sheets; but they of course might be, for example, in B5:B? of the sheet 1 and in C7:C? of the sheet 2. You need clearly to adapt the code to your current data.

Answer 2

There's no need for VBA. Some simple array-formulas can do the job.

To see if the entry in CAS1 is present in CAS2:

=OR(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(A2,CAS2_)))

will return TRUE or FALSE. BUT this formula has to be entered by holding down CTRL-SHIFT while hitting ENTER If you do this correctly, Excel will place braces {...} around the formula that you can see in the formula bar.

The SEARCH function returns an array of results, which will be either the #VALUE! error, or a number.

In order to return the address, the following array-formula can be entered adjacent to a cell in CAS1:

=IFERROR(ADDRESS(LARGE(ISNUMBER(SEARCH($A2,CAS2_))*ROW(CAS2_),COLUMNS($A:A)),1),"")

Fill right for the maximum number of addresses possible, then select the group and fill down.

In this case, the array being returned is a string of either 0's, or 1 * the row number (ie the row number). I assumend the data in CAS2 was in column A, but you can change the column number if needed (or even compute it if necessary, by replacing the 1 in the ADDRESS function with COLUMN(CAS2_) )

CAS1_ and CAS2_ are either named ranges, or absolute range references to the two text groups.