In an old workbook, Analyst Alex finds a mysterious cell—A1—whose content is redacted. Alex runs a few tests:

=FIND("*", A1) returns 1
=SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) returns 2
=SEARCH("~?*~?", A1, SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) + 1) returns 4
=SEARCH("~*", A1, FIND("*", A1) + 1) returns 3
=LEN(A1) returns 5

what is the text in cell A1?

(Do not use double quotations, just type all the characters in the text)

Question

In an old workbook, Analyst Alex finds a mysterious cell—A1—whose content is redacted. Alex runs a few tests:

=FIND("*", A1) returns 1
=SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) returns 2
=SEARCH("~?*~?", A1, SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) + 1) returns 4
=SEARCH("~*", A1, FIND("*", A1) + 1) returns 3
=LEN(A1) returns 5

what is the text in cell A1?

(Do not use double quotations, just type all the characters in the text)

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

We start by clearly restating what information we have from the tests and what is being asked: determine the exact 5-character text in A1 that satisfies all given formula results, and we are told not to include quotes in the final answer.

- The first test says FIND("*", A1) returns 1. This means the first (leftmost) occurrence of the literal asterisk character * is at position 1 in A1. Therefore, the character in A1 at position 1 must be *.
- The second test, SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) returns 2. The pattern ~? is used to escape a question mark so that it is treated as a literal ?; * is a wildcard, and ~? again stands for a literal ?. The overall pattern parses as: literal ?, then any sequence of characters, then literal ?. The fact that the match starts at position 2 indicates that from position 2 onward, there is a substring that begins with a literal ?, followed somewhere later by a literal ?. Given that A1 begins with *, the position 2 character must be the first literal ? (since the overall match cannot start before position 2). Thus, A1[2] = ?.
- The third test: SEARCH("~?*~?", A1, SEARCH("~?*~?", A1) + 1) returns 4. This repeats the same literal-? pattern search but starting after the first match found in the previous step. The result being 4 means the second occurrence of a substring that starts with a literal ? and ends with a literal ? appears starting at position 4. Since we already deduced A1[2] = ?, this reinforces that A1 has another ? at position 4 (serving as that trailing literal ? in the pattern).
- The fourth test: SEARCH("~*", A1, FIND("*", A1) + 1) returns 3. The pattern ~* means a literal * (tilde escapes the asterisk). SEARCH with a starting point after FIND("*", A1) + 1 searches for the next literal * in A1 after the first *. The result being 3 indicates that there is a second character in A1 (at position 3) that is a literal asterisk, i.e., another * appears at position 3.
- The fifth test: LEN(A1) returns 5. This confirms A1 has exactly five characters, positions 1 through 5.

Putting these deductions together:
- Position 1 is * (from FIND("*", A1) = 1).
- Position 3 is * (from the second literal-asterisk finding at position 3).
- Positions 2, 4, and 5 must be characters that satisfy the literal ? occurrences and the total length of 5.
- From the pattern involving literal ? at position 2 and another literal ? later (position 4) as indicated by the second and third tests, we infer that A1[2] = ?, A1[4] = ?, and the remaining position (5) must be a character that completes the five-character string without contradicting any test.

Thus, compiling these constraints, the only arrangement that fits all tests is:
- A1 = [1] *, [2] ?, [3] *, [4] ?, [5] ?.

Therefore the textual content of A1 is: *?*??

Cross-checking quickly:
- FIND("*", A1) -> 1 holds because the first character is *.
- LEN(A1) -> 5 holds because there are five characters.
- The literal-escape pattern tests with ~? and ~* align with having ? at positions 2 and 4, and a literal * at position 3, while the initial * at position 1 satisfies the second test’s starting point. The final character at position 5 being ? keeps the trailing literal ? available for the pattern matches.

If you’re aiming to validate further, you could simulate each function step by step with A1 = *?*?? and verify that each of FIND and SEARCH calls returns the specified indices, noting how Excel’s wildcards and tilde escapes interact with literal characters.

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