find a row index of a number that occurred first

excel excel-formula
niko picture niko · Dec 7, 2011 · Viewed 91.9k times · Source

I have A column that has values in random order like 

       A column
           2
           3
           4
           2
           5
           6
           4
           3
           4

I want the row index of a particular number that occurred first. say if i say the number is 4 the value returned should be 3

I also want the row index of a particular number that occured last.say if i say the number is 3 then the value returned must be 8

I was thinking Vlookup or find function must do the task but unable to put them in order.please help me with these

Answer

JMax picture JMax · Dec 7, 2011

My examples are looking for the number 3 but it is easy to adapt.

To find the first occurence, you can use:

=MATCH(3,A:A,0)

To find the last one, you can use an array formula (validate with Ctrl+Shift+Enter)

{=MAX(IF(A1:A10=3,ROW(A1:A10),0))}

Note that you could also have used an array formula for the first one with a MIN but it would be quite complicated for what it's worth.

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