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# Handling of Empty Cells

In older versions of the software, empty cells were forced to numeric 0 in some contexts and to empty string in others, except in direct comparison where =A1=0 and =A1="" both resulted in TRUE if A1 was empty. Emptiness now is inherited until used, so both =VLOOKUP(...)=0 and =VLOOKUP(...)="" give TRUE if the lookup resulted in an empty cell being returned.

A simple reference to an empty cell is still displayed as numeric 0 but is not necessarily of type numeric anymore, so also comparisons with the referencing cell work as expected.

For the following examples, A1 contains a number, B1 is empty, C1 contains the reference to B1:

Case | Formula | Results and comments
A1: 1 B1: <Empty> | C1: =B1 | Displays 0
=B1=0 | TRUE
=B1="" | TRUE
=C1=0 | TRUE
=C1="" | TRUE (previously was FALSE)
=ISNUMBER(B1) | FALSE
=ISNUMBER(C1) | FALSE (previously was TRUE)
=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) | FALSE (B1)
=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) | FALSE (C1, previously was TRUE)
=ISTEXT(B1) | FALSE
=ISTEXT(C1) | TRUE
=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) | FALSE (B1, previously was TRUE)
=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) | FALSE (C1)
=ISBLANK(B1) | TRUE
=ISBLANK(C1) | TRUE
=ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) | TRUE (B1, previously was FALSE)
=ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) | FALSE (C1)

Note that Microsoft Excel behaves different and always returns a number as the result of a reference to an empty cell or a formula cell with the result of an empty cell. For example:

Case | Formula | Results and comments
A1: <Empty> | B1: =A1 | Displays 0, but is just a reference to an empty cell.
=ISNUMBER(A1) | FALSE
=ISTEXT(A1) | FALSE
=A1=0 | TRUE
=A1="" | TRUE
=ISNUMBER(B1) | FALSE (Microsoft Excel: TRUE)
=ISTEXT(B1) | FALSE
=B1=0 | TRUE
=B1="" | TRUE (Microsoft Excel: FALSE)
C1: =VLOOKUP(...) with empty cell result | displays empty (Microsoft Excel: displays 0)
=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(...)) | FALSE
=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(...)) | FALSE
=ISNUMBER(C1) | FALSE (Microsoft Excel: TRUE)
=ISTEXT(C1) | FALSE