VBA Custom Function referring to two closed lists

[Will from London]

Hi

I am attempting to write a custom function to validate the Complementary Identification Code (CIC) for a list of over 10,000 financial assets.

The CIC is a 4 character alpha-numeric code and I have an exhaustive list of permitted options for the first two characters and an exhaustive list of permitted options for the final two. There are 251 for the first and 112 for the second so I would prefer not to have to type them all into the VBA function. These two lists are stored as columns (text) within the same Excel workbook (but on a different tab) as where the formula needs to be used. I've already allowed for cases where the CIC is not exactly 4 characters and where the letters are not in uppercase.

For example in cell A1 I have "FR11" and I want cell B1 to show "OK" (as both "FR" and "11" are in the respective lists) but if I have "FR10" in cell A2 I want B2 to return "Error" (as the "10" is not permitted in the second list).

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

[RoryA]

One way would be something like:

=IF(COUNT(MATCH(LEFT(A1,2),list1,0),match(RIGHT(A1,2),list2,0))=2,"OK","Error")

 

[Will from London]

Hi. Thanks for your reply. I was specifically looking for something I could incorporate in a custom function (as it does other things like check that the letters are in uppercase) but your suggestion is not case sensitive.

I have tried variations on the following:
In a cell I have:
=CICcheck(A1,INDIRECT(References!$B$5),INDIRECT(References!$E$5))
Where References!B5 has the text of the range e.g. "References!B9:B259" and
Where References!E5 has the text of the range e.g. "References!E9:F120" and

Function CICcheck(valToTest as string, range1 as variant, range2 as variant) As String
dim cicFirstTwo as String

cicFirstTwo = left(valToTest,2)
  'Other parts of code checking it's 4 characters, uppercase letters etc
'then the part that is not working:

 If iserror(worksheetfunction.vlookup(cicFirstTwo, range1, 2, false)) = True then
      CICcheck = "Error"
endif

'...
End function

But if the worksheetfunction.vlookup(cicFirstTwo, range1, 2, false) part is an error then the custom function returns "#VALUE!" rather than processing the "CICcheck = "Error"" line.

Thanks

 

[Will from London]

Actually RoryA, thanks to your suggestion of COUNT I've solved it using if worksheet function.countif(...) = 0 then...