VLOOKUP: Correcting a Myth (Binary Searches)

[@alterrock1]

This was really interesting. Thank you for the information!

[@OzduSoleilDATA]

You're very welcome

[@jasonphan90]

Hey, i thought this was very informative. Thanks

[@OzduSoleilDATA]

You're so welcome!

[@reemkhalil6894]

Hello OZ, Can you please elaborate on your binary search algorithm? where did you get the (N+1)/2 term?

[@erikapitts429]

If you're looking for exact info, why ever write true into a formula?

[@OzduSoleilDATA]

+Erika Pitts First, "True" is a misleading term. It's not really about approximate matches. You use True when you want to categorize data. A classic example is grading. If 90% and above is an A, 80% to 89% is a B, and 70% to 79% is a C, you can use VLOOKUP with True to get 83% appropriately assigned a B. To use VLOOKUP/False you'd have to list every grade from 0 to 100% because False would look only for 83%. That'd be especially problematic if you allowed, say, 83.14%. VLOOKUP/False would look exactly for 83.14% Think of VLOOKUP/True any time you have data that needs to be tiered or categorized. An example could be if you had the square-footage of 1500 homes and apartments. The desire would be to segment the units into: 1-person 2-people Family Gigantic You would set the square-footage levels and VLOOKUP/True would help you segment the 1500 addresses into 4 distinct categories.