The difference is that the SEARCH function supportswildcardsbut isnotcase-sensitive, while the FIND functioniscase-sensitive butdoes notsupport wildcards.
error when the substring is not found.
The standard approach is to wrap these functions in the ISNUMBER function to force a TRUE or FALSE result.
Excel 365 nowsupports regular expressions(regex), a powerful tool for pattern-matching.
TheREGEXTEST functionoffers a direct way to test for specific text with a TRUE or FALSE result.
Because REGEXTEST uses regex, it can be configured to use precise patterns for advanced use cases.
See below for basic examples.
If SEARCH finds the substring, it returns thepositionof the substring in the text as a number.
If the substring is not found, SEARCH returns a #VALUE error.
For example:
To force a TRUE or FALSE result, we use theISNUMBER function.
ISNUMBER returns TRUE for numeric values and FALSE for anything else.
Wildcards
Although SEARCH isnotcase-sensitive, it does supportwildcards(*?~).
For example, the question mark (?)
wildcard matchesany one character.
This wildcard is not as useful in the SEARCH function because SEARCHalready looks for a substring.
), and tilde (~) in that order.
You are free to customize the values returned by IF as you like.
for one of many substrings),see this example formula.
SEARCH returns the position offind_textinsidewithin_textas a number.
When the text is not found, FIND returns a #VALUE error.
REGEXTEST Function
The Excel REGEXTEST function tests for the existence of text defined by a given pattern.
The result from REGEXTEST is TRUE or FALSE….
