MacLochlainns Weblog

While discussing the limitations of wild card comparisons in the Microsoft Excel’s IF function, I resolved to share my ISLIKE function. It acts like the LIKE operator in SQL. You can’t use the word like as the function name because it’s a reserved word in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

The function lets you compare any string to see if it is contained in another string. The default mode is case-insensitive, and the override mode case-sensitive. The optional third element lets you override the default comparison method.

You should remember or note that a number 0 is always evaluated as false, and any other number (negative or positive) is always true. You can put the ISLIKE function in a macro sheet or an Add-in library. I recently posted instructions on how to create your own Add-in library.

Here is the VBA code for the user defined ISLIKE function:

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Function ISLIKE( hasValue As Variant _
               , inValue As Variant _
               , Optional caseSensitive As Integer = 0)
 
  ' Define a logical return variable and assign a default value.
  Dim logicReturn As Boolean
  logicReturn = False
 
  If caseSensitive Then
 
    ' Finds a case-insensitive value as a component in a larger value.
    If inValue Like "*" + hasValue + "*" Then
      logicReturn = True
    End If
 
  Else
 
    ' Finds a case-sensitive value as a component in a larger value.
    If UCase(inValue) Like "*" + UCase(hasValue) + "*" Then
      logicReturn = True
    End If
 
  End If
  ' Return the logical value.
  ISLIKE = logicReturn
 
End Function

You can shorten the program and make it slightly less efficient by performing the case sensitive match twice. The following doesn’t rely on nested block IF statements. You also must change the third parameter to a Boolean or the Not operator won’t work correctly.

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Function ISLIKE( lookupValue As Variant _
               , containsValue As Variant _
               , Optional caseSensitive As Boolean = 0)
 
  ' Define a logical return variable and assign a default value.
  Dim logicReturn As Boolean
  logicReturn = False
 
  ' Finds a case-insensitive value as a component in a larger value.
  If caseSensitive And _
     lookupValue Like "*" + containsValue + "*" Then
      logicReturn = True
 
  ' Finds a case-sensitive value as a component in a larger value.
  ElseIf Not caseSensitive And _
    UCase(lookupValue) Like "*" + UCase(containsValue) + "*" Then
      logicReturn = True
 
  End If
 
  ' Return the logical value.
  ISLIKE = logicReturn
 
End Function

Somebody asked me, “How this can be useful?” That meant from their perspective, how is it useful beyond a comparison of cell values. A quick example of that additional utility can be demonstrated from an early post. In that post on replacing a VLOOKUP function with a UDF, there’s compound logic used to find the occurrence of a substring in a string. The ISLIKE function can simplify that logic.

Here’s that snippet of the code from that referenced post. The snippet evaluates whether the base string is greater than one character and checks the second character of the string to see if it is a - (minus sign).

58

ElseIf Len(LetterGrades(i)) > 1 And Mid(LetterGrades(i), 2, 1) = "-" Then

You can replace the compound logic with a call to the LIKE function. It would replace line 58 as follows:

58

ElseIf ISLIKE(LetterGrades(i),"-") Then

The logic of the function examines to see if the first parameter contains the second parameter. This is what is meant by like. In the following illustration, you examine if a string contains a substring (or is like a substring). The cell A2 is also assigned a Range name. Range names can increase the readability of your models and functions. All but the last one perform case insensitive comparisons that find whether the substring in cell A2 is found with cell range of the B5:B10. The B10 formula performs a case sensitive match.

Another logic comparison uses grades to see if a minus sign is found in them. The example compares the cell values in A1 and A2 against the B1 and B2 values. Returning true for one and false for the other cases in column C of the respective rows.

Here are the calls to the ISLIKE user defined function. The first one is case-insensitive and the second case-sensitive, but there’s no case sensitivity with a minus sign, -.

As always, I hope this helps. If you’ve comments or alternative approaches, please let me know.

Microsoft Excel supports macros but it also supports library functions, known as User Defined Functions (UDF). Library functions are less risky than macros because they must return a value to a cell. This is a quick tutorial, mostly for my students, but as usual for anybody who’s interested.

Microsoft Excel User Defined Functions (UDFs) are different than standard VBA macros. They’re behavior is restricted. You can’t access other cells in a workbook, and may only return a value (also known as an expression) to the cell that uses the formula. That having been said, they can dramatically hide the complexity of mega-formulas and remove them from the editing control of users.

Here are the steps to configure your Excel 2007 environment to work with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and UDFs. They show you how to display the developer ribbon, open a module for editing, save VBA code into a library (*.xlam file), and add the library file as an “Add-in” library to your Excel 2007 installation. The name of the library will be the same as the Workbook where you created it.

1. Displaying Excel’s Developer Tab

2. Click the Developer ribbon tab. Click the left most icon to launch the Visual Basic Editor screen.

3. Open a Module in the Visual Basic Editor by clicking the Insert menu item and choosing the Module element.

4. Copy the following function definition into the open Module. The name of the UDF will be the case-sensistive name of the function in the VBA module. That means you’ll now have a newSerialDate function in your list of functions when you click the insert function button.

=monthEnd(cell_reference)

Public Function newSerialDate(dateIn)
 
  ' Define local variables.
  Dim day As String
  Dim month As String
  Dim year As String
  Dim startPosition As Integer
  Dim endPosition As Integer
  Dim length As Integer
 
  ' Initialize local variables and parse the month from the left.
  startPosition = 1
  endPosition = InStr(startPosition, dateIn, "/")
  month = Left(dateIn, endPosition - 1)
 
  ' This is a debugging tool to track variables during execution.
  MsgBox ("Month [" + month + "]")
 
  ' Shift the start position and parse the day from the middle.
  startPosition = endPosition + 1
  endPosition = InStr(startPosition, dateIn, "/")
  day = Mid(dateIn, startPosition, endPosition - startPosition)
 
  ' This is a debugging tool to track variables during execution.
  MsgBox ("Day [" + day + "]")
 
  ' Get the remainder of the string.
  startPosition = endPosition
  length = Len(dateIn) - startPosition
  year = Right(dateIn, length)
 
  ' This is a debugging tool to track variables during execution.
  MsgBox ("Year [" + year + "]")
 
  ' Return a value from a User Defined Function (UDF) by using
  ' the function name as the return variable.
  newSerialDate = DateSerial(year, month, day)
 
End Function

Function newSerialDate(dateIn As Double)
  newSerialDate = dateIn
End Function

Function newSerialDate(dateIn)
  newSerialDate = DateValue(dateIn)
End Function

5. Create the following spreadsheet, the formula values are noted below the screen shot. You should be able to copy and past them into the spreadsheet. After you’ve created the spreadsheet, entering a new date in cell A1 causes the UDF to run. When the UDF runs “as-is”, you’ll see message dialog boxes that show values set during runtime.

6. You can now save this as an Add In library but comment out those debug MsgBox() function calls. Click the Office Button and click SaveAs in the menu, then accept Excel Workbook initially. When you get to the SaveAs dialog, choose Excel Add-In as the file type. Below is a screen capture of the drop down selection box.

7. Open a new Excel Workbook. Click the Excel Options button. Click the Add-Ins tab. Inside the right side pane, make sure the Manage drop down says Excel Add-ins before you click the Go button.

8. Check the Samplefunction check box as shown below. Samplefunction is the name of the Workbook that contains the module, and it is saved as an *.xlam file. Click the OK button to add the library. You’ve now created, and added an Add-In library to your new spreadsheet. It will create a SampleFunction.xlam file in the users directory.

The file is found by default in:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AddIns

As always, I hope this is helpful to a few folks.

This is probably defensive because I’ve had to answer the question about two dozen times since the iPad product announcement. The question is naturally, what do yo think about the iPad?

My perspective is biased by the fact that I’ve been using both DOS/Windows PCs and Macs since the 1980s. They each have merits but in short, unlike the media, I have a bias toward Apple products. In fact, I’m an old NeXT system administrator (software gone from the scene because as rumors have it, Steve wouldn’t think of letting the company become ONLY a software company).

I think the idea of the iPad for eBooks is awesome, the features are terrific. It clearly is a better opportunity for my digital movies but a bit awkward because of its size.

I can’t travel with an iPad by itself because it doesn’t support Microsoft Excel, Word, or Visio. That means I’d have to have my MacBook Pro and iPad. Ouch, the security folks will go nuts at the airport, and my bags are now heavier by about 2 pounds. The iPad is 1.5 pounds but the charger has weight too.

I understand all the logic for the device but there’s an underlying assumption in placing everything on the web. Some data can’t be on the web because of legal limits. This goes to my sticking point. Apple’s Office Suite isn’t as robust as Microsoft’s Office Suite. Keynote is easier to use and easily preferred over PowerPoint, but Numbers isn’t even close to Excel (here Apple fails). The problem with Pages is that many companies have templates built around Word and there’s no easy migration back and forth.

Perhaps Apple will reach out to Power Excel users and invest in Numbers to bring it into this millennium; and maybe they’ll also fix the portability between Word and Pages too. For example, one company I work with insists that I use Word 2003 because they’ve never updated their templates to Word 2007 (easy to do through VMWare Fusion). Then, all that’s needed is a rock solid replacement for Visio on Mac OS X.

I think that I might buy one to experiment with, just so I’m current with the product and new features. I’ve also got some product ideas that I’d like to explore but I don’t think this is a home-run like the iPod and iPhone without vitualization software to enable Windows. As an afterthought, maybe the announcement this summer will be “you can have it all now” when they port most features to the core OS X operating system. That would induce me to upgrade my MacBook Pro, wouldn’t it get you to do so too?

While reconfiguring my iMac, it was interesting to note the bumpy road to implementing Code Weaver’s CrossOver Plus 8.0.1 for the whole Microsoft Office Suite. Previously, it had only been used to support Microsoft Visio 2007.

I discovered that a Shutdown and Start operation was required after installing CrossOver Plus because a Restart hadn’t worked. Attempting to create the WINE bottle with a reboot gave me the following error:

The Microsoft Office 2007 package requires CrossOver HTML engine to install and
run properly. Continuing with the install may produce unpredictable results.

I also found that patching the Office product failed. It’s possible that could be the network here, but there’s also no manual way to download *.msi files and apply them against the WINE bottle. It’s possible that a trick was missed and there is a way to do it. Downloading and right clicking on the *.msi file on the Mac OS X side allows you to look for an application to help but I couldn’t find a helper application in the CrossOver Plus folder tree. It may be there, however, where it is eluded me in the time my patience would allow (please comment if you know its location)?

Rather than use Google Quick Search Box I thought symbolic links would be helpful in the Applications folder since I actually also run Microsoft Office 2008. Turning to Chapter 6 in the product documentation didn’t solve the problem. It led me to an incorrect folder location.

They’re not here, as stated in the product documentation:

You can find them in the WINE bottle folders here, the default is for Windows XP:

Within the Bottle folder, you can find the Microsoft Office 2007 links here:

The CrossOver Plus installation suppresses the options dialog to choose a typical, full, or custom installation of Microsoft Office 2007. That means you get typical, which means you can’t connect to a remote database using the JDBC et cetera. This doesn’t meet my needs and means I’ll have to put another VMWare instance together to work with Microsoft Excel 2007 reasonably. Drat!

Holiday Gift from Microsoft

Windows 7 ships. Then, we find it’s really Windows Vista+ (code base 6.1). Now, Microsoft give us a late year present, the Microsoft Black Screen of Death. What better excuse to rush out and buy a MacBook Pro?

Holiday Gift from Apple

Buying a MacBook Pro makes sense if you don’t already have one. Owning one, I’m hesitant to upgrade my MacBook Pro because the battery in the new one requires a service call when the battery wears out. An expensive item because the battery life is generally poor after 1,000 recharge cycles and that number of recharges may or may not occur before your Applecare service contract runs out.

Battery life/replacement is one of the reasons why I’ve stayed on my old MacBook Pro (purchased 16 months ago). The other reason is that I plan on getting by with a MacBook Pro for 4 to 5 years not Apple’s apparent plannned obsolescence of 3 years. While I’m in the gripe mode, the new Apple Cinema Display is attractive but not compatible with older MacBook Pro or MacBook computers. Also, the Altona DVI to Mini Display Port has mixed reviews out there and Apple seems disinterested in helping owners of older machines use the new Cinema screens. There aren’t any other alternatives to the Altona product (at least that I’ve found). I almost feel that somebody at Apple watched the movie Robots too often because it seems my 16 month old MacBook Pro is an outmode and there isn’t an upgrade option (only a new purchase).

Some tips and techniques for Word seems like a good add to the blog. At least, those changes that I run into while writing for McGraw-Hill on my new book projects. This shows you how to enable Microsoft Word 2007 and 2008 readability statistics. Yes, it’s moved in the new release.

Word 2007

Microsoft Word 2007 has the Office Button. The Office Button holds the key to what were once tool options. You click on the Office Button in the upper left hand corner. You’ll see the following options dialog. Click the Word Options button to change options.

Choose the Proofing option in the left column, then check the Show readability statistics check box, as shown. You click the OK button when your done setting Word options.

Word 2008

Microsoft Word 2008 works like Mac OS X applications. You navigate to the Word on the menu and choose Preferences. That launches the following menu set.

Double click the Spelling and Grammer icon, which launches the Spelling and Grammar options dialog. Check the Show readability statistics box and then click the OK button to save the setting.