How do you extract a subarray from an array in a worksheet function?

Question

Is there some way of getting an array in Excel of a smaller size than a starting array in a cell worksheet function?

So if I had:

{23, \"\", 34, 46,          


        

Answer 1

The above answers all give brittle formulas that cannot be moved to different locations on the sheet and are very sensitive to inserted rows and columns.

Here is a version that is not sensitive and can be moved around to any row:

=INDEX($A$10:$A$40, SMALL(IF(B$10:B$40,ROW(INDIRECT("1:30"))),ROW(INDIRECT("1:30"))))

In this example the original array values are placed in $A$10:$A$40 (perhaps by using the array formula {TRANSPOSE(originalArray)} if the original data was a row instead of a column).

Column B$10:B$40 contains boolean flags (TRUE or FALSE) that determine if this array element should be preserved in the result (TRUE) or not (FALSE). You can populate this column using any function you want. To create the test mentioned in the OP, <>"", B$10 should be filled with: =A10<>"" (and then copied down thru B$40). Column A has absolute column references and column B has relative column references, so the formula can be copied over into columns further to the right, allowing you to create other types of attributes and sub-arrays, which will be governed by boolean tests you put in columns C and D etc.

This example will handle an original array of up to 30 elements. For a larger array, adjust the ranges $A$10:$A$40 and B$10:B$40 (which represent 30 rows) and also adjust the two occurrences of "1:30" to suit.