CFI-Excel-eBook

The Corporate Finance Institute Excel
Example 2
Suppose we wish to get the first non-blank value (text or number) in a one-row
range, we can use an array formula based on the INDEX, MATCH, and ISBLANK
functions.
We are given the data below:
Here, we want to get the first non-blank cell, but we don’t have a direct way to
do that in Excel. We could use VLOOKUP with a wildcard *, but that will only
work for text, not numbers.
Hence, we need to build the functionality by nesting formulas. One way to do it
is to use an array function that “tests” cells and returns an array of TRUE/FALSE
values that we can then match with MATCH. Now MATCH looks for FALSE
inside the array and returns the position of the first match found, which, in this
case, is 2. Now the INDEX function takes over and gets the value at position 2 in
the array, which, in this case, is the value PEACHES.
As this is an array formula, we need to enter it with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
We get the results below:
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