Use the FIND function for Base

2 min read

I. Intro

The FIND function searches for a value from the specified position and returns the position where the searched value first appears. It is commonly used in information retrieval and management. For example, you can use the FIND function with the MID and COUNTIF functions to split and extract key information in the table.

Arguments

FIND(Find_value, Find_within, [Starting_position])

Find_value: The character or string to search.

Note: The value is case-sensitive.

Find_within: Where to search for the find_value. You can search for a value, a data set, or a field.

Starting_position: The starting point of the find_value or the number of characters to start searching. If it is 2, start searching for the value from the second character in the cell. If this is not filled in, it defaults to start from 1.

Note: If the character or string to be searched does not exist, the return value is -1.

II. Steps

Open the base and click the + icon on the right side to create a new field. Enter a field title and select Formula as the field type.

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In the formula editor, enter the FIND function, and select the value to be searched and the search range.

For example, if you want to extract the username from the email address, you can use this formula: LEFT([Email Address],FIND("@",[Email Address],1)-1), as shown in the image below. The FIND function searches for the @ symbol in the email address and the LEFT function returns the value on the left of the @ symbol, which is the username.

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III. Use cases

Split and combine information

Scenario: To extract keywords from personnel information, you can use the FIND function with MID and LEN functions. For example, you can extract the department of the employee by using the following formula.

Formula: MID([Employee info],FIND("-",[Employee info])+1,LEN([Employee info]))

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