Countifs function using special characters

[msenthil]

Hi how to differentiate between "cat" and "cat*" using countif function

 

[bbott]

Could you be more specific about the problem that you're trying to solve?

 

[msenthil]

Could you be more specific about the problem that you're trying to solve?

I have the following table
Cat
Cat
Cat*
Cat*
Cat*

When I use countif to count the the occurences of "cat" & "cat*" , I get the following results
Cat-2
Cat*-5
Basically the function is not able to differentiate between the strings "Cat" and "Cat*"

 

[Trouttrap2]

Excel interprets the "*" as a wild card character. So the cat* means, give me any text string that starts with "cat". Use:
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat~*")
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat")

 

[msenthil]

Excel interprets the "*" as a wild card character. So the cat* means, give me any text string that starts with "cat". Use:
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat~*")
=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$5,"cat")

Thank you!
But I was trying to refrence the cell containg the String "Cat*". COuld you help me with that?

 

[Trouttrap2]

you can try this
=COUNTIF(A1:A5,SUBSTITUTE(C2,"*","~*"))

C2 holds your text string "cat*"