Multifunctional Functions

Category: VBA Functions | [Item URL]

This tip describes a technique that may be helpful in some situations - making a single worksheet function act like multiple functions. For example, the VBA listing below is for a custom function called StatFunction. It takes two arguments: the range (rng), and the operation (op). Depending on the value of op, the function will return any of the following: AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, MEDIAN, MIN, MODE, STDEV, SUM, or VAR.

For example, you can use this function in your worksheet as follows:

 =STATFUNCTION(B1:B24,A24)

The result of the formula depends on the contents of cell A24 -- which should be a string such as Average, Count, Max, etc. You can adapt this technique for other types of functions.

The StatFunction Function

Function STATFUNCTION(rng, op)
    Select Case UCase(op)
        Case "SUM"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Sum(rng)
        Case "AVERAGE"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Average(rng)
        Case "MEDIAN"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Median(rng)
        Case "MODE"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Mode(rng)
        Case "COUNT"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Count(rng)
        Case "MAX"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Max(rng)
        Case "MIN"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Min(rng)
        Case "VAR"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.Var(rng)
        Case "STDEV"
            STATFUNCTION = Application.StDev(rng)
        Case Else
            STATFUNCTION = Evaluate("NA()")
    End Select
End Function