Excel: Passing Array to User Defined Function (VBA)

Question

edit: solution - see original question below

In passing arrays like {1,2,3} to a UDF I found two things to be considered:

• the locale - see answer 1. The list separator on a german system (usually) is ";" therefore I need to use {1 ; 2 ; 3}.

• the passed array appears as a 2-dimensional array within the function. Therefore it's n-th element must be targeted as myArray(n, 1). Disregarding this gave me the #VALUE! error.

Thus, a short "select case"-UDF may look like this:

Function SelCase(a1, a2, a3)
    For i = 1 To UBound(a2)
        If a2(i, 1) = a1 Then SelCase = a3(i, 1)
    Next
End Function

called like (german locale!):

=SelCase(A1;{1;2;3};{"a";"b";"c"})

giving "a", "b", or "c" in result depending on A1 holds 1, 2 or 3.

A more elaborated "select case"-UDF is found here.

---

original question:

I'd like to pass an array like {1,2,3,4} to a user defined function in Excel 2002 - and don't manage to find the way to do this.

I'm using a german version, so "," is my decimal separator and also separates values in an horizontal (1D-)array - edit: this is wrong - , wheras ";" separates arguments in functions called in formulas from sheet and also seprates values in vertical (1D-)arrays - as far as I know.

I tried something like

Function test(myArray)
Function test(myArray())

with something like

=test({1,2,3,4})
{=test({1,2,3,4})} (with ctrl+shift+enter)

in my sheet, but Excel alway asks me to correct my formula like "=test({1,234})" which is not what I want.

If I try something like

=test({1;2;3;4})
=test(1,2,3,4)
=test(1;2;3;4) <- ok this would be for paramArray

as formula in the sheet I get an #VALUE! error.

I can't use paramArray 'cause in the end I'll have to pass two arrays (with variable size) and one single value as 3 arguments. What syntax do I need in the sheet and in VBA to pass an array (which is not defined as a range)?

Thank you in advance! Martin Lindenlauf

edit:

What I'm trying to build is a shorthand UDF for "Select Case", like:

Function SelCase() As Variant
a1 = "b"
a2 = Array("a","b","c")
a3 = Array("e1","e2","e3")
For i = 0 To UBound(a2)
    If a2(i) = a1 Then SelCase = a3(i)
Next
End Function

with a1, a2, a3 not defined within the function but passed by function call like

=SelCase(A1;{"a","b","c"};{"e1","e2","e3"})

giving "e1"..."e3" depending on A1 = "a", "b" or "c".

I could realize this with CHOOSE() and MATCH() but I neet it very often -> like to have a nice "short version", and btw. I'd like to understand what I'm doing wrong with arrays and UDFs... Thanks.

edit 2:

I found a working approach for "select case UDF" here. The general question remains: how to pass an array in a kind of {1,2,3}-notation to an UDF (if possible).

Answer 1

Is this what you mean?

Excel formula:

=sumArray({1,2,3,4,5},2,{9.5,8.7,7.3,6,5,4,3},D1:D11)

UDF:

Function sumArray(ParamArray arr1() As Variant) As Double

    sumArray = WorksheetFunction.Sum(arr1(0)) + arr1(1) + _
        WorksheetFunction.Average(arr1(2)) + WorksheetFunction.Sum(arr1(3))

End Function

update:

The code and formula above definitely work using UK locale with the settings below. If you are getting errors then either substitute the symbols from the control panel or update the formula with the correct list separator and decimal symbol.