Convert an Array Formula's Text Results into a Usable Format

Question

When the results of an Array Formula are numbers, I find it generally easy to find an appropriate method to collapse the array into a single result. However when the results

Answer 1

You can create your own aggregate function to handle the results of a formula array. It does require a little VBA... but it's not difficult. This will allow you to do all kinds of string manipulation or numerical analysis on arrays of values.

To do your concatenation function, open up a VBA code window and create a new module by right clicking on the project -> insert -> new module. Double click the new module and insert this code to create the function that will concatenate an array into one large string:

Function ConcatenateArray(ParamArray Nums() As Variant) As Variant
Dim BigString As String
Dim N As Long
Dim A() As Variant
Let A = Nums(0)

BigString = ""
For N = LBound(A) To UBound(A)
    BigString = BigString & A(N, 1)
Next
ConcatenateArray = BigString

End Function

Then change your array formula in the cell to:

=ConcatenateArray(IF(VALUE(RIGHT($A$1:$A$500,3))>400,$A$1:$A$500,""))

Of course you have to hit CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER instead of just ENTER to confirm the cell as an array formula.