Count the number of times specific text appears in a column

[Nannie]

I have a column of dates in various formats (sometimes the year is first,
sometimes not). I would like to determine the number of times a specific
four-digit year occurs withing the column. Can you help me? Thanks!

 

[Bob Bridges]

It's pretty easy if Access knows they're dates. If Access thinks they're
just random strings of numbers, it takes an extra step.

Since you said the dates are in various formats, and I kind of figure your
column has all the same format setting -- not very certainly, but it's the
likely supposition -- let's assume the format setting is text, and Excel
doesn't know that column has dates in it. So first you have to get Excel to
know what dates are represented there. Set up a "helper" column to the right
that uses the DATEVALUE function. If all your text dates are in column C,
let this first helper column (in col M, let's say) has the function
=DATEVALUE(C2) in M2. That means M has not a text value but a real Excel
date value in it corresponding to what's in col C.

Now in col N put =YEAR(M2); thus in col N is the year represented by the
date in col C.

To determine how many of those say 2002, for instance, use the formula
=COUNTIF(N,2002).

I don't use COUNTIF much, so take this with a grain of salt -- look it up,
check it out with other Excel jocks, test it for yourself etc.

 

[mikerickson]

=COUNTIF(A1:A600,"*2008*") will count the number of text entries in A1:A600 that have 2008 as a sub string, but it will miss any dates that are entered as Excel serial dates.

=SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(FIND("2008",TEXT(A1:A600,"yyyy")))) will catch both the text containing 2008 and the serial date values for the year 2008, but it will miss entrys with 2-didgit years (eg. 23/5/08 as text). However, looking for a sub-string "08" is problimatic. How to distinuguish between a date that is year 2008 from a date that is Month August?

 

[Bob Phillips]

Are they text fields or real dates just formatted in different ways?

--
HTH

Bob

(there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my addy)

 

[Nannie]

They are formatted as dates but most were entered as =xdate(1860,6,11,"yyyy,
mm dd") although some look like ~1862 or after 1862. They are civil war era
dates and Excel can't handle them. (Seems strange Excel doesn't have the
choice of displaying dates with years first.)

Thanks for any assistance!

 

[Bob Phillips]

What is xdate? I don't know that function, it must be a UDF.

--
HTH

Bob

(there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my addy)

 

[David Biddulph]

http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/xdate.htm

And to answer part of the OP's original question, Excel certainly can
display dates with the year first.
But it sounds as if you are trying to use vague text, rather than specific
dates.

And to try to answer more of the original question, for normal Excel dates
YEAR() gives the year (as Bob Bridges referred to in his reply), and the
link above implies that there is an equivalent XDATEYEAR function in John's
addin.

And to answer the implied question in the *subject line* of the OP's
original message, you need to remember that Excel dates are not stored as
text, but as numbers. If you want to manipulate them as text and look for
text strings such as the year part of the date, you can convert from date to
text using the TEXT function.