Question

If a cell is empty, I want it to look in the cell above. If that one is empty, it will look in the cell above that until it finds a non-empty cell. When it does, it should return it. It’ll be a UDF called loopUp. Then, when I use it in a cell formula like so: =loopUp(D24), and the range D18:D24 is empty, it’ll show what is in D17.

Here’s some Psuedo:

Function loopUp(Cell)
    while Cell is empty
        Cell becomes cell above
    return cell

I am new to VBA. The thing I am stuck on is how to pass in the address of a cell rather than its value.

Answer 1

Following Siddharth’s last suggestion, here is a way to tackle it.

Function LoopUp(rng As Range) As Variant

Dim intCnt As Long

LoopUp = "Nothing found"

For intCnt = rng.Row To 1 Step -1
    If Not IsEmpty(Cells(intCnt, rng.Column)) Then
        LoopUp = Cells(intCnt, rng.Column)
        Exit For
    End If
Next


End Function

UPDATE

This may be a better, cleaner, easier to understand solution. I tested it a bit, but someone may break it!

Function LoopUp(rng As Range) As Variant

If Not IsEmpty(rng) Then LoopUp = rng
Else
    If rng.End(xlUp).Row = 1 Then LoopUp = "Nothing found" Else LoopUp = rng.End(xlUp)
End If 

End Function