Excel 2007: Finding Column Position

[David Lipetz]

Is there a formula that can look at a row of labels and return the columnar
position of a designated value?

For instance:

Row A: Apples Oranges Pears Peaches

How can I programmatically determine the column number for Pears?

The end result is I am trying to do a VLOOKUP but the column number may be
dynamic though the label will always be the same.

Thanks,
David

 

[Dave Peterson]

Row 1 (not row A):

=match("pears",1:1,0)
will return the number of the column (if it finds a match) or an error (if there
is no match).

Debra Dalgleish has some samples that you may want to review:
http://contextures.com/xlFunctions03.html
(especially the examples)

 

[David Lipetz]

Perfect. Thank you!!

Row 1 (not row A):

=match("pears",1:1,0)
will return the number of the column (if it finds a match) or an error (if
there
is no match).

Debra Dalgleish has some samples that you may want to review:
http://contextures.com/xlFunctions03.html
(especially the examples)