Microsoft Excel CHOOSE-Function

CHOOSE Function 

Where you are processing numeric values it is often easier to use an indexing function than a logical one. For example, cell reference A1 contains the values of either 1, 2 or 3 and another formula needs to react to these values by returning either "Tom", "Dick" or "Harry". The CHOOSE function returns the nth item from an internal list where n is the value of the first argument:

=CHOOSE(A1,"Tom","Dick","Harry")

The equivalent formula using IF would be far more involved:

=IF(A1=1,"Tom",IF(A1=2,"Dick","Harry"))

The indexed elements in CHOOSE can be any value, a cell reference or a calculation. In the next example we need to return a value to a cell based on which day of the week it is, on Monday we must have a 20, on Tuesday, 34 etc. The NOW function returns the current date value, the WEEKDAY function returns a value from 1 to 7 and the CHOOSE function picks the correct value from the list:

=CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(NOW(),2),20,34,89,12,105,232,232)

NB* The second argument for the WEEKDAY function specifies the value order for the days of the week, argument value 2 means that Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7.
Often, the indexed listing inside the function avoids your having to work out calculations logically.

For example; an organisation uses a financial year which starts in April and we have to express the month number as a value from 1 to 12, April is 1, May is 2 etc. A combination of the functions

MONTH and NOW will give the calendar month as a number but in the usual order; January is 1, February is 2 etc. You could work out logically how to transform the calendar month number into the required month number but it so much easier with CHOOSE:

=CHOOSE(MONTH(NOW()),10,11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)

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