What is VLOOKUP in Excel?

Data Science, AI and ML
,
#1

VLOOKUP is an Excel function to look up data in a table organized vertically. VLOOKUP supports approximate and exact matching, and wildcards (* ?) for partial matches. Lookup values must appear in the first column of the table passed into VLOOKUP.

  • Purpose: Lookup a value in a table by matching on the first column
  • Return value: The matched value from a table.

Syntax

=VLOOKUP (lookup_value, table_array, column_index_num, [range_lookup])

Arguments

  • lookup_value - The value to look for in the first column of a table.
  • table_array - The table from which to retrieve a value.
  • column_index_num - The column in the table from which to retrieve a value.
  • range_lookup - [optional] TRUE = approximate match (default). FALSE = exact match.