Countif problem

[forexcel]

I have a range of codes at column a (about 1500 codes) I used =countif($A$1:$A$2000;EG43) to check if the input code at EG43 is correct and it returned 1 but should have returned 0. EG43 contains R1738* while at A81 there is the value R1738.If i delete the value of A81 countif returns 0 so the problem is at this cell. I guess the * at end is considered as wildcard. Any idea how to avoid this?

 

[Jonmo1]

Yes, the * is being treated as a wildcard.

Try
=countif($A$1:$A$2000;SUBSTITUTE(EG43;"*";"~*"))