Extracting all rows based on a value of cell without VBA

Question

I\'m really struggling to find an answer to this as online I\'ve really only found VBA solutions to this problem which isn\'t what I wish to learn how to do.

Answer 1

The following array formula can be put in row 2 (anywhere from column E onward) and copied across 3 columns and down as far as is necessary:

=IFERROR(INDEX(A:A,SMALL(IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("O",$A$2:$A$11)),ROW($A$2:$A$11),""),ROW()-1)),"")

This is entered using Ctrl + Shift + Enter and uses a fixed array (A2:A11). If your array is going to change size, you can make the reference to it dynamic by using INDIRECT and COUNTA so that it always encompasses the used range, like so:

=IFERROR(INDEX(A:A,SMALL(IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("O",INDIRECT("$A2:$A"&COUNTA(A:A)))),ROW(INDIRECT("$A2:$A"&COUNTA(A:A))),""),ROW()-1)),"")

What is happening:

The SEARCH function is looking for "O"s, then the IF returns the row number if an "O" was found and nothing if no "O" was found.

The SMALL function is looking for the nth instance of the results returned by the SEARCH function, where n = ROW()-1.

The INDEX function returns the nth value from the array A:A, B:B, etc, where n = the row number returned by the SMALL function.

The IFERROR function is not necessary but it makes for a cleaner dataset, all it does is replace the formulas that didn't return anything useful with a blank instead.