Excel IF statement check

[triggerthat]

I have the following statement to see if C3 contains quotes or square brackets

=IF(SEARCH("""",C3,1),"quotes",IF(SEARCH("[",C3,1),"brackets","na"))

But it doesn't seem to work if I C3= dfg[

Any ideas?

 

[CAPTAINBUMFLUFF]

=IF(SEARCH("""",C3,1),"quotes",IF(SEARCH("*[*",C3,1),"brackets","na"))

Not sure if the above is correct

But a wildcard should work

 

[Lartyconshayo]

this'll test for brackets but I'm struggling with the quotes

=IF(MID(C3,SEARCH("[",C3,1),1)="[","Brackets","No Brackets")

this returns quotes

=MID(C3,SEARCH("""",C3,1),2)

but when I put it in an IF statement it's giving me a value error. I've even tried testing it against a helper cell so putting "" in H7 say and testing whether it is equal to the chars returned by the MID function and it gives me TRUE but can't get it to work in an IF yet.

This will test for Quotes

=IF(COUNT(FIND(CHAR(34),C3)),"Quotes","Not Quotes")

but for the life of me I cannot get the two statements to work together in an IF

 

[andshrew]

It's not working because SEARCH is returning an error in the first part of the IF so it's never reaching the second stage of the IF to check for the bracket.

You can make it work by checking if an error has occurred, and if it hasn't assume that SEARCH has found the value you're interested in.

Something like this

=IF(NOT(ISERR(SEARCH("""",A1))),"Quotes",IF(NOT(ISERR(SEARCH("[",A1))),"Brackets","Nothing"))

 

[Lartyconshayo]

nice one Andshrew. Ahh the hive mind that is OCUK forums.