Today, we will learn an interesting array formula trick to test if a list is sorted or not.
During last one week, I got 2 requests from different clients for some excel related work. Both of them had one thing in common. To test whether a list is sorted or not. So I got thinking, how do I know if a list is sorted or not without visually scanning it.
Of course, the answer is in a formula.
Let us say you have a list of values (text, numbers or mixed) like this:
Assuming your values are in the range B2:B8
Write the formula =AND(B2:B7<=B3:B8) and press CTRL+Shift+Enter to make it an array formula.
The result will be true if the list in B2:B8 is sorted in ascending order, false otherwise.
How does this formula work?
Very simple. Assuming your list has n values, it check first n-1 values with their next values to see if each value is less than or equal to its next value. If all of them are true, the AND formula returns TRUE. See this illustration:
Download Example Workbook
I have made a simple example file to illustrate this technique. Go ahead and play with it.
Click here to download example workbook – Excel Array Formula to check if a list is sorted or not.
How would you write formula for this?
As fun homework, go ahead and figure out an alternative formula for this. Then come back and post it comments. Let us see how many different ways we can get the same result.
Go!
11 Responses to “Use Alt+Enter to get multiple lines in a cell [spreadcheats]”
@Chandoo:
One more useful trick.......
In a column you have no. of data in rows and need to copy in the next row from the previous row, no need to go for the previous rows but entering Alt + down arrow, you will get the list of data, (in asending order), entered in the previous rows...
This is another great tip. I use this all the time to make sense of some *very* long formulas. As soon as the formula is debugged I remove the break.
Great tip Chandoo!
I use this feature often and it has even gotten the, "how did you do that" response.
Thanks!
@Ketan: Alt+down arrow is an awesome tip. I never knew it and now I am using it everyday.
@Jorge, Tony: Agree... 🙂
[...] Day 1: Insert Line Breaks in a Cell [...]
how can we merge a two sheet.
excellent idea. Chandoo you are genious
Hi chandoo,
I have used ctrl+enter to break the cell. But I did not get the result.
Please tell me how can i break the cell in multiple lines.
Hi, Ranveer,
Its not Ctrl+enter to break the cell, use Alt+Enter to make it happen.
hi Chandoo....
how we can use Alt+Enter in multiple rows at the same time please reply hurry i have lot of work and have no time and i m stuck in this. 🙁
Alt+J worked once 🙁
So I found another more reliable way:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,CHAR(13),"")
Where A2 is the cell that contains the line breaks which the code for it is CHAR(13). It will replace it with whatever inside the ""