test for "special characters" in text

[Frank Cutre]

Hi,

I need to make sure that a cell contains NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS (including
the <SpaceBar>) during data entry.

I've tried:
=len(cellReference)=len(substitute(cellReference,or(char(32),char(34),...etc
),"")

but Excel doesn't like the OR funtion (2nd parameter) inside SUBSTITUTE.

How do you test if a cell reference contains ANY of the "special text
characters" (from list below)?

space
double quote
number
dollar
percent
ampersand
apostrophe
open parenthesis
close parenthesis
asterisk
plus
comma
hyphen
period
forward slash
colon
semi-colon
less than
equal
greater than
at symbol
open square bracket
backslash
close square bracket
caret
underscore
single quote (under tilde)
open curly bracket
pipe (above backslash)
close curly bracket
tilde


Thanx for your time... (^_^)

 

[Guest]

ASAP Utilities, a free Add-in available from www.asap-utilities.com has a
feature called "Advanced Character Removal" that should get rid of any
unwanted characters for you....

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Play with something like this array formula:

=MIN(LEN(SUBSTITUTE("ABC#DEFGH",{" ",".","#"},{"","",""})))<Len("ABC#DEFGH")

 

[Harlan Grove]

Frank Cutre wrote...

I need to make sure that a cell contains NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS (including
the <SpaceBar>) during data entry.

I've tried:
=len(cellReference)=len(substitute(cellReference,or(char(32),char(34),...etc ....
but Excel doesn't like the OR funtion (2nd parameter) inside SUBSTITUTE.

....

Looks like you want only letters and digits. There's no way to prevent
users from typing them, and if they're clever enough to know how to use
copy & paste, there's no way to use data validation to prevent them
from being entered. That leaves removing them yourself or forcing your
users to remove them.

Doing it yourself, there's no 1-cell way to do it without resorting to
VBA. You could use a udf like the following.


Function foo(s As String, p As String) As String
Dim c As String * 1, k As Long, n As Long

n = Len(s)

For k = 1 To n
c = Mid$(s, k, 1)
If c Like p Then foo = foo & c
Next k

End Function


and use it in formulas like

=foo(B5,"[A-Za-z0-9]")

The other alternative, make your users clean their own entries, can be
done by ensuring that invalid entries trigger nothing but errors in
formula results along with messages that tell the user that it's their
own invalid entries that caused the errors. That can be done with
built-in functions and one defined name, e.g., define the name N
referring to 128 or so, seq referring to

=ROW(INDEX($1:$65536,1,1):INDEX($1:$65536,N,1))

then try the *array* formula

=0/(COUNT(FIND(MID(UPPER(B5),seq,1),
"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"))=N)

which should return 0 when cell B5 contains nothing but letters and
decimal numerals but #DIV/0! when it contains any other characters.

In my experience nothing is more effective in motivating users to enter
valid data than giving them nothing but errors and diagnostic messages
explaining that those errors are due to invalid entries. If a user can
only print off pages full of errors and text stating that the errors
are their own fault, they can't complain to their bosses or to IT
support. All they can do is fix their own errors. This won't win you
popularity contests among your users, but it will ensure they do what
they're supposed to do.

 

[Frank Cutre]

Hi Tom,

ref:
=MIN(LEN(SUBSTITUTE("ABC#DEFGH",{" ",".","#"},{"","",""})))<Len("ABC#DEFGH")

1) This "was" going in a data validation definition (which doesn't like
"arrays") so... how do I get that formula into a VBA udf (which doesn't like
the array formula's "{}" curly brackets)?

and (just for my own info AND when not used in a data validation definition)

2) How do you include the double quote (") character in the "old_text"
parameter of the SUBSTITUTE function?

Thanx for your time... (^_^)

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

Hi,

I need to make sure that a cell contains NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS (including
the <SpaceBar>) during data entry.

I've tried:
=len(cellReference)=len(substitute(cellReference,or(char(32),char(34),...etc
),"")

but Excel doesn't like the OR funtion (2nd parameter) inside SUBSTITUTE.

How do you test if a cell reference contains ANY of the "special text
characters" (from list below)?

space
double quote
number
dollar
percent
ampersand
apostrophe
open parenthesis
close parenthesis
asterisk
plus
comma
hyphen
period
forward slash
colon
semi-colon
less than
equal
greater than
at symbol
open square bracket
backslash
close square bracket
caret
underscore
single quote (under tilde)
open curly bracket
pipe (above backslash)
close curly bracket
tilde


Thanx for your time... (^_^)

If you want to use Data Validation, understanding it's limitations that someone
could copy/paste a value into that cell that did not meet the criteria, then
you could download and install Longre's free morefunc.xll from
http://xcell05.free.fr

If your cell to be validated is, for example, A1, then in some unused cell (for
example Z1) enter the formula:

=REGEX.FIND(A1,"\W")

This will return a 0 UNLESS there is one of your special characters in A1, in
which case it will return the position of that character.

Then use the Data Validation Formula Is: =Z1=0


--ron