EXACT (x,y)

Description:

This function compares two text strings and returns TRUE if they are exactly the same, FALSE otherwise. EXACT is case-sensitive but ignores formatting differences.

Syntax: EXACT(Text1, Text2)

• Text1 : is the first text string.
• Text2 : is the second text string.

Remarks

• The text argument is compulsory.
• If you specify a number instead of a text value as this parameter, the function would return an error which is #VALUE

Example

The EXACT function can be used in any database where you have stored any text values and you want to check if two text values are matching exactly and return a "TRUE" for an exact match while a "FALSE" for text not matching. In this case it's possible to access this information through the "EXACT" function. This function displays a Boolean value as its result after the function computes the two parameters supplied to this function and determines whether or not the two values are exactly the same or not.

=EXACT ("A", "A")	-equals "TRUE"
=EXACT ("N", "n")	-equals "FALSE"
=EXACT ("90", "90")	-equals "TRUE"

 

Note: A number supplied within double quotes is taken as a string parameter.

Let us take the example of a database in PowerOLAP where we have certain text values for name, last name, city, country etc., and we need to manipulate these text values and arrive at results with different permutations and combinations. We shall use this example in this case to ascertain whether or not there exists an EXACT match between two parameters provided by the "Name" parameter that has the values for people's names, and the "User Name" parameter which has the values for the user names that are used by users for security. In this case, we have written a formula in the appropriate cube in PowerOLAP, pulling in the value from both the above mentioned parameters and then checks for the match between the two values. It returns a Boolean value as the result for the exact function.



The formula above writes values into the "StringDataFunctions" cube to the "String Data Manipulations" dimension into the member named "Exact" by calculating the appropriate value for this member, based upon the parameters that are given as input to this function from the "Name" and the "User Name" member in the "String Values" dimension both of which form the parameter supplied to this function and the result of a match between the two members, whether true or false is returned by the function.