Which function is used to find the position of a character in a string?

The function used to find the position of a character in a string is the SEARCH or FIND function. Both of these functions are designed to return the numeric position of a specified character or substring within a larger string of text.

The SEARCH function allows for wildcard characters, meaning it can match patterns. This makes it versatile when you're looking for a substring that may vary but follows a certain pattern. For instance, if you're searching for "a*" in the string "basket", SEARCH would return the position of "a". On the other hand, FIND is case-sensitive and will return an error if the specified string is not found. This function would be used when exact matching is required.

Using either SEARCH or FIND helps you locate specific characters or substrings, which is essential in data manipulation and text analysis within spreadsheets. The other functions like INDEX, MATCH, and VALUE serve different purposes; INDEX retrieves values from a specified location in a table, MATCH finds the location of a value in a range, and VALUE converts text that appears in a recognized format into a number.