execute cell contents

[padgbury]

This is a very simple description of what I want to do

Cell A1 contains the value 99

cell A2 contains the value A

cell A3 contains the value 1

If I now type =A1 in another cell I get the answer 99. All OK so far.

What I want to do is to generate the command =A1 by assembling it from the contents of A2 and A3 and have it return 99. I have tried the commands, =concatenate(a2,a3) and =(a2&a3), and both put A1 in the cell and do not execute it. Is this possible.

 

[DonkeyOte]

=indirect(a2&a3)

 

[Legacy 98055]

=indirect(a2&a3)

 

[padgbury]

Thanks for the responses. It worked a treat. I think a fuller explanarion of what I'm trying to do may be needed though.

The command I build references an external workbook and the fields I am trying to substitute are date parameters.

The spreadsheet I am trying to modify has 12 tabs, one per month, each month has a section of columns per week and there are 30+ rows of figures, each referencing external workbooks depending on the date, approximately 1600 cells in all with this years dates in. The problem is that when I copy this file to create next years workbook it is very labour intensive. I believe if I can get this to work it will ALMOST be a 5 minute job as I can change the date of the first week and link all the other dates to this.

An example of what I currently run, which works, is:

=IF(ISERROR('D:\WAGES\Invoicing\2007-2008\[inv 07.08.05.xls]VENUE1'!$I$72),0,'D:\WAGES\Invoicing\2007-2008\[inv 07.08.05.xls]VENUE1'!$I$72)

I have created cells containing values:

cell value
a1 2007-2008
a2 07
a3 08
a4 05

and I want to substitute these into the above command and have it return the value from the invoice file. I have tried a few combinations of conmmands using INDIRECT but with no success.

Thanks,

P

 

[DonkeyOte]

INDIRECT will not work with closed workbooks I'm afraid... you would need to use VBA to update your references with variables and post them back as formulae or use INDIRECT.EXE but my understanding is from other Posters that this tool is not great (or have the linked file open obviously but your link D:\.... implies it's closed)