How does MATCH handle a Non-Match?

[Chris]

I would like a steer on how the MATCH Worksheetfunction behaves if it
doesn't find an exact match of values in the array it is searching.

I am looking through a series of Dates and instead of picking the
nearest one - which I need and seems most obvious - it seems to pick
the previous one.

I.E. - Searching for 14 Oct 2005
In a list which contains (among others)
15 Sep 2005
16 Oct 2005

And it picks the 15 Sep row!

PS. Cell values are actually 14/10/2005 but formatted as above.

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

In Excel's Help for the MATCH function, it describes how the values are
returned.