Find MAX number in range formatted at TEXT

[RobbieC]

Hi there, I know that the answer to this is staring me in the face, but I can't get my brain into gear this morning

I have a range (I182:I186) which is reflecting dates from other sheets (date formatted 20180116). This range is formatted as TEXT as the reference cells are also formatted as TEXT (generated via vba) - I cannot change this...

so I have a range which looks like:

20180110
20180101
20180108
20180116
20180109

I thought I could use:

=MAX(I182:I186) // this cell is formatted as GENERAL

to simply return the largest number, but it just returns 0, but should be returning 20180116

What am I doing wrong? My brain hurts

 

[RobbieC]

Thanks mate - I just couldn't see the wood for the trees... been driving me crazy and I was thinking the problem lay with cell formatting.... doh!