Countifs function using special characters

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Could you be more specific about the problem that you're trying to solve?

I have the following table
Cat
Cat
Cat*
Cat*
Cat*

When I use countif to count the the occurences of "cat" & "cat*" , I get the following results
Cat-2
Cat*-5
Basically the function is not able to differentiate between the strings "Cat" and "Cat*"
 
Upvote 0
Excel interprets the "*" as a wild card character. So the cat* means, give me any text string that starts with "cat". Use:
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat~*")
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat")
 
Upvote 0
Excel interprets the "*" as a wild card character. So the cat* means, give me any text string that starts with "cat". Use:
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat~*")
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat")
Thank you!
But I was trying to refrence the cell containg the String "Cat*". COuld you help me with that?
 
Upvote 0
you can try this
=COUNTIF(A1:A5,SUBSTITUTE(C2,"*","~*"))

C2 holds your text string "cat*"
 
Upvote 0

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