How to count cells that have value "?"?

[JanosP]

Hello,
I have a sheet in calc and I need to count all cells that have the following exact value: ?.
If I use countif(A1:E5,"=?") function, it counts all cells that consist of 1 character.
I tried to use =\? as criteria but it doesn’t work.

Example:

In this example, the number of “?” should be 7.

How could I solve this? Can anyone help me?
Thank you in advance!

[Zizi64]

The question mar is one of the Regular expressions.
https://help.libreoffice.org/4.4/Common/List_of_Regular_Expressions

You can try to

• switch between the options “Use wildcard/Use regular expressions/No Wildcard or Regular expressions in the formulas” in the Calc settings: You must to decide if you need this functionality or not.
• use a different craracter instead of the question mark

[mikekaganski]

@JanosP

I tried to use =\? as criteria

Note that by default, wildcards are used in Calc formulas; and that means, that ? is special (as you have guessed), and it must be masked using ~, not using \.

[JanosP]

Hello mikekaganski,
thank you! It works well using ~.

[keme1]

When testing for equality you don’t need the equals sign in the condition.
Try =COUNTIF(A1:E5;"?") or =COUNTIF(A1:E5;"\?")

[JanosP]

Hello keme1,
thank you! I tried that. You’re right, it works well without = but only "~?" works.