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powerrdl's avatar
powerrdl
Helper I
9 years ago
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Bug in COUNT function?

  I am getting same output with COUNT and COUNTA functions for all columns of above data. COUNT(Locn) gives output as 5 even though there are 4 entries and no numeric entry. Not getting error ...
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  • v-haibl-msft's avatar
    v-haibl-msft
    9 years ago

    Anonymous

     

    COUNTA can count TRUE/FALSE column but COUNT still raises an error.

     

    Best Regards,
    Herbert

powerrdl's avatar
powerrdl
Helper I
9 years ago

Hi Anonymous

 

Much thanks for your response.

 

This is dummy data created to practice the COUNT/ COUNTA functions. As per my understanding, COUNT is supposed to give error when used with a Text column, but it doesn't. Also, the location for Product ID 2 is empty, not " ". If COUNT is working similar to COUNTA, what really is the difference between the two ?

 

Regards

Rameen Dhall

 

 

 

 

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
9 years ago

Count vs CountA:  CountA will essentially count every row.  Count will only count the rows that are non-blank.

 

Dummy data or not, my expectation is that you are getting a similar result due to the count seeing " " as data.  It needs to be understood that " " or ""  is not blank, nor is it null.  I want to stress this point as you could be incorrectly thinking you will get a lower count because you believe that value is empty, when the computer sees it as the character space (i.e. unicode 0020).