Refer to a sub-function in a function

[lord_yo]

Hello everyone

Is it possible for a function to refer to a result of a nested function within it?

Example:

=if((FUNCTION)=0;0;RESULT_OF_FUNCTION)

whereas FUNCTION would be written out as usual, and RESULT_OF_FUNCTION would be an abbreviation refering to the result of the function, without having to repeat it again or having to use additional cells for intermediate steps.

I'm asking because this would eliminate the need to repeat complicated functions several times, as you could just refer to them. Functions could be cleaner. Regular expressions allow backreferences like this (see http://www.regular-expressions.info/brackets.html).

 

[shg]

Alas, there are no back-references in formulas.

 

[shg]

In the particular case of expressions that may return errors, in Excel 2007+,

=iferror(expression, default)

 

[RoryA]

In the case of your example:
=FUNCTION()

 

[lord_yo]

@rorya: heh, that's true!

@shg: great tip about the =iferror function, that's really useful!