Retrieving Formulas within Excel concatenate function

Question

I want to parse an excel concatenate statement to find the result of the enclosed expression. Eg: =CONCAT("=1-2-3+7*8") should return 52, and =CONCAT("=AVERAGE(A1,A2)") should return the average of the two fields. Is there any function or any other way to accomplish this in excel?

Answer 1

Try the following User Defined Function:

Public Function raghav(rng As Range) As Variant
    Dim s As String

    s = Mid(rng(1).Formula, 2)
    arr = Split(s, Chr(34))
    For Each a In arr
        If Left(a, 1) = "=" Then
            raghav = Evaluate(a)
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next a
End Function

User Defined Functions (UDFs) are very easy to install and use:

1. ALT-F11 brings up the VBE window
2. ALT-I ALT-M opens a fresh module
3. paste the stuff in and close the VBE window

If you save the workbook, the UDF will be saved with it. If you are using a version of Excel later then 2003, you must save the file as .xlsm rather than .xlsx

To remove the UDF:

1. bring up the VBE window as above
2. clear the code out
3. close the VBE window

To use the UDF from Excel:

=raghav(A1)

To learn more about macros in general, see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

and

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee814735(v=office.14).aspx

and for specifics on UDFs, see:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/WritingFunctionsInVBA.aspx

Macros must be enabled for this to work!