Difference between <>word and <word>

[testinglife]

Hello, What exactly is the difference between doing something like "<>hello" and "<hello>". I hate using sum product because I always forget how to use it, so I am using a =sumifs like this.......... =sumifs(A1:A100,B1:100,"<>*033000*"). I figured out that is the way it works, because I want it to sum everything that is does not contain/equal 033000. However for a while I was using "<033000>" and it wasn't kicking out an error. I luckily caught that it was messing up randomly. I can't seem to find what the difference is between them? Also it seems like <033000> is working the same as *033000*. How are those two different? Thanks !

 

[joeu2004]

SUMIFS(...,"<033000>") matches everthing that is "less than" the string "033000>".

Since CODE(".") is less than CODE("0"), SUMIFS would sum rows that contain strings starting with period, for example.

In contrast, in limited situations like SUMIFS, SUMIF, COUNTIFS and COUNTIF (and a few others), asterisk ("*") is called a "wildcard" character. It matches any zero or more characters.

So "*033000*" matches what you intended: any string that contains 033000, including strings that start or end with 033000.

Bottom line: there is no similarity whatsoever between "<>*033000*" and "<033000>".