How to use ISERROR() or ISNA() in Xcelsius

The fact that Xcelsius does not implement either ISERROR() or ISNA() is of much frustration to many of us – these are indispensable functions when used in conjunction with error-prone functions such as FIND() or MATCH().

Thankfully, there is a work around!

Just use Count()

Say $A$1 is a string: A1 = “hi, world!”

And you want to know if A1 includes the word “hello”.  In Excel, you would simply do B1 = IFERROR(FIND(A1,”hello”),””)

But that won’t work in Xcelsius.  Instead, use

B1 = COUNT(FIND(A1,”hello”))

which will return 0 if “hello” is not found, and 1 if it is found.

Summary

So if you want to use errors in formulas, use Count() instead of iserror():

Count(number) = 1

Count(error) = 0