COUNT IF Function Help

[KuraiChikara]

Hello,
I am simply trying to use a COUNTIF function to find a lesser than or equal to result for time.

Example: I have the times 5:00 PM through 9:00 AM (descending) listed in column C. And lets say for testing purposes the exact same time frames in column B for the range.

This formula below will return a 1 if 5:00 PM is listed once in cells B2-B10.
=COUNTIF(B$2:B$10,C2)

However, if B3-B10 has the times 4:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 2:00 PM, 1:00 PM, 12:00 PM, 11:00 AM, 10:00 AM and 9:00 AM

with my less than or equal to formula returns a zero:
=COUNTIF(B$2:B$10,"<=C2")

I'm simply trying to yield the same results just by adding the less than or equal to function; 5:00 pm is less than or equal to 5:00 PM, I should get a 1. 12:00 PM is less than or equal to 5:00 PM, should yield a 1. So on and so forth.

But my formula returns 0.

 

[Peter_SSs]

Try
=COUNTIF(B$2:B$10,"<="&C2)

 

[KuraiChikara]

That works thank you. It actually does more of what I was looking for. There are 8 other time frames under 5:00 PM (9 including 5:00 PM) and your formula gives me 9.

One more question, what does the ampersand do to make this work?

 

[Peter_SSs]

That works thank you. It actually does more of what I was looking for. There are 8 other time frames under 5:00 PM (9 including 5:00 PM) and your formula gives me 9.

Do you have a blank cell in the range as that would also evaluate to less than your time-of-interest?

One more question, what does the ampersand do to make this work?

It appends the value in cell C2 to the "<=" text. The way you had it written, "<=C2" is just a literal text string and has nothing to do with cell C2.