"DCOUNTA-ING" too many items...

[dh13134]

i have several industry group names in a column - general example:
A5 thru A10 contain "Electronics" (5 total)
A10 thru A15 contains "Electronics Semiconductors" (5 total)
A15 thru A20 contains "Electronics Equipment" (5 total)

when i use the DCOUNTA function with "Electronics" as my criteria, the
result gives me 15 "answers", when i only want 5 - "Electronics". i'm getting
everything that even "contains" "Electronics" instead of only the 5 that i
want.
any thoughts would be appreciated.

i'm using DCOUNTA but my results

 

[Eduardo]

Hi,
the Dcounta function counts the non blank cells in the range use the countif
instead

=COUNTIF(A5:A25,"electronics")

 

[dh13134]

does your answer still apply since i'm using "D"COUNTA in a database query?

also, my criteria is a cell reference instead of entered "text", as you
suggestion shows. -example:

=DCOUNTA('sheet1'!A5:A20,C1,C1:C2))

C1 has my field - GROUP

C1:C2 has my crieria -
GROUP
Electronics

any further thoughts??

 

[dh13134]

your suggestion DOES work, (=COUNTIF(A5:A25,"electronics")
), but i'm curious about why my DCOUNT method returns too much info. any
further thoughts before we "close" this thread?