how to pass a string value into COUNTIF?

Question

For this formula:

=COUNTIF(A1:A10,"jim")

how can I pass in a variable? That is, let's say that cell C11 has the value "jim"; can I then do something like:

=COUNTIF(A1:A10,TEXT_VALUE_OF_CELL(C11))

for the same result?

I'm very curious as to why this question received 2 no-comment downvotes. It may not look like a very good question to anyone familiar with Excel, but I don't see how it's not a perfectly acceptable Question. — Alex M, Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 18:47
why, thank you, @AlexM. The more complex question is how to use wildcards, such as something like: "*C11" with COUNTIF, or other pattern matching. — Thufir, Commented Mar 14, 2019 at 3:21
Sure, that could also be an interesting question, many (many) variants of which likely exist on this stack. — Alex M, Commented Mar 14, 2019 at 16:36

Ted D. · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-11 20:03:55Z

5

The cell reference acts as a variable: =COUNTIF(A1:A10,C11)

answered Mar 11, 2019 at 20:03

Ted D.

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