Development Shack Technology Understood

VLOOKUP wrong value  

VLOOKUP() is a curious function.

Consider this table:

Key Value
1 David
2 John
3 Ryan

To remind you, here is the format: VLOOKUP( searchValue, searchRange, returnColumn )

Everything works fine with the above data table:

VLOOKUP(1, A1:B3, 2) = David

VLOOKUP(2, A1:B3, 2) = John

VLOOKUP(3, A1:B3, 2) = Ryan

Now consider a table like this:

Key Value
1 David
3 Ryan
2 John

VLOOKUP(1, A1:B3, 2) = David

VLOOKUP(2, A1:B3, 2) = David

VLOOKUP(3, A1:B3, 2) = John

What happened?

VLOOKUP assumes the data is sorted by the key you are searching by!