Microsoft KB Archive/827317

= The MATCH function may return an unexpected value in Excel =

Article ID: 827317

Article Last Modified on 11/27/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office Excel 2007
 * Microsoft Office Excel 2003
 * Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

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SYMPTOMS
When you use the MATCH function to find the position of a value in an array in a Microsoft Excel worksheet, an unexpected value may be returned.



CAUSE
This behavior may occur when the optional match_type option is omitted. In this scenario, the default match_type option value of 1 is assumed and the MATCH function will return the largest value that is less than or equal to the lookup_value that you specify. If the MATCH function does not find a match, the function will return the #NA error value.



MORE INFORMATION
The MATCH function returns the relative position of an item in an array that matches a specified value in a specified order.

The syntax of the MATCH function is:

MATCH(lookup_value,lookup_array,match_type)

Additional query words: XL2000 XL2003 XL2007 XL2002 XL

Keywords: kbprb KB827317

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