XL2000: How to Use Application.Match to Locate Date Values on a Worksheet

In Microsoft Excel, you may run into problems if you use the Match method in a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro or procedure to locate date values on a worksheet. When you use a macro to search for dates, you need to search for the actual serial value of the date.

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In Microsoft Excel, each date is represented by a serialized number. If you are using the 1900 date system in Microsoft Excel 2000 the serial numbers range from 1 to 2958465, corresponding to the dates January 1, 1900, through December 31, 9999. If you are using the 1904 date system in earlier versions, the serial numbers range from 1 to 2957003, corresponding to January 1, 1904, through December 31, 9999.

To use a macro to match a date, use the serial value for the date as the lookup value when you use the Match function. You can acquire the serial value for a date by using the CLng function to convert the date to a long integer.

The following example shows how to search for a date (1/3/95) in cells A1 through A10 in sheet 1:

1. Open a new Excel Workbook.
2. Enter 1/3/95 in cell A2 of sheet 1.
3. Open the Visual Basic Editor by pressing ALT+F11.
4. On the Insert menu, click Module.
5. Enter the following code in the new module sheet:

   Sub MatchDate()
   
       Dim TheDate As Date
       Dim Index As Variant
   
       TheDate = #1/3/95#
   
       ' Find a match for the serial value of the date in the range A1:A10
       ' on Sheet1.
       Index = Application.Match(CLng(TheDate), Range("Sheet1!A1:A10"), 0)
   
       ' Display the results.
       If IsError(Index) Then
           MsgBox "Not Found"
       Else
           MsgBox "Match item: " & Index
       End If
   End Sub
   					

6. Run the macro. Note that you receive the message "Match item: 2".