{ "category": "Information functions", "display_name": "TYPE", "entry_kind": "built_in_function", "eval_api": { "method": "POST", "url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/api/eval" }, "function_id": "FUNC.TYPE", "implementation_state": { "answer_bank": { "excel_builds": [ "20430" ], "larger_numeric": 0, "last_bit": 0, "matched": 1227, "other_mismatch": 0, "refused": 0, "rows": 1227, "unread": 0, "worst_ulp": 0 }, "detail": "Recorded: 1,227 in the answer bank and 355 workbook cells.", "dnacalc_commit": "9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87", "in_catalogue": true, "state": "matches", "state_label": "Matches every recorded Excel answer", "summary": "Matches all 1,582 recorded answers", "workbook_corpus": { "cells": 357, "matched": 355, "pending": 2 } }, "implementations": [ { "commit": "9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87", "flavour": "excel-compatibility-candidate", "language": "Rust", "name": "CalcFunc", "own_code": [ "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/information.rs#L104-L104", "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/information.rs#L363-L396", "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/information.rs#L398-L408" ], "repository": "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc", "shared_code": [ "catalogue/aggregate::reader", "catalogue/aggregate::read_reference", "catalogue/information::unary", "catalogue/information::scalar", "catalogue/information::known", "catalogue/information::each", "catalogue/information::n", "catalogue/information::n_of", "catalogue/information::one_cell", "catalogue/information::referenced" ], "source": "https://github.com/DnaCalc/DnaCalc/blob/9e1884369a678158dd82d3d74188daf986995e87/crates/calc-func/src/catalogue/information.rs#L104-L104", "state": "matches", "suite": null, "summary": "Matches all 1,582 recorded answers" } ], "json_url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/api/functions/FUNC.TYPE.json", "name": "TYPE", "notes": [], "schema": "efh.function-reference/v1", "section_order": [ "what-it-does", "try-it", "quirks", "how-to-implement", "version-differences", "alternatives" ], "sections": { "alternatives": "\n### Relationships\n\n\n- **The IS family** answers the same questions one bit at a time. The correspondence is exact\n where both exist: `TYPE=1` matches `ISNUMBER`, `TYPE=2` matches `ISTEXT`, `TYPE=4` matches\n `ISLOGICAL`, `TYPE=16` matches `ISERROR`. There is no IS function for `64`, which is why\n `TYPE(x)=64` is the standard array test.\n- **`ERROR.TYPE`** refines `TYPE`'s `16` into a code 1–8. The two functions are complementary and\n are often used together: `TYPE` to branch, `ERROR.TYPE` to diagnose.\n- **`ISBLANK`** covers the distinction `TYPE` erases — `Empty` versus `Number` — because both\n report as `1`.\n- **`ISFORMULA`** covers the distinction Microsoft's remark says `TYPE` cannot make.\n- **`ISREF`** covers the reference case `TYPE` never sees.\n- **`CELL(\"type\", ref)`** is a different function with a confusingly similar name and a much\n coarser answer: it reports `\"b\"`, `\"l\"` or `\"v\"` (blank, label, value) for a cell, is\n host-dependent, and is not a substitute for `TYPE`.\n- **`N` and `T`** are the projections that pair with `TYPE`'s classification.\n\n\n", "how-to-implement": "\n### Notes for implementers\n\n\n1. **`TYPE` of an array is `64`, not an array of codes.** This is the axis on which `TYPE`\n diverges from the entire IS family, and routing `TYPE` through a shared elementwise lift\n helper silently breaks it. It is the single most likely implementation error on this function.\n2. **`Empty` and `Missing` need an explicit mapping.** Microsoft's table names neither. Whatever\n an engine chooses should be a recorded decision awaiting evidence, not a fall-through.\n3. **Decide about 128 deliberately.** An engine that cannot produce compound data has no 128\n case, which is defensible — but it should be recorded as \"unreachable here\", not as\n \"documented code omitted\".\n4. **The codes are stable numbers, not an enum's ordinal.** They must be emitted as the literal\n published values; there is no reordering freedom.\n5. **Errors are classified, not propagated.** As with the IS classifiers, the error has to reach\n the kernel.\n\n\n", "quirks": "\n### Result and edge cases\n\n\nReturns a `Number` — one of the codes above.\n\n- **An error input returns `16`; it does not propagate.** `TYPE` is a classifier, so an error is\n a subject, not a failure. `TYPE(#DIV/0!)` is `16`, and so is `TYPE(#N/A)`. `TYPE` cannot tell\n you *which* error; `ERROR.TYPE` can.\n- **An array input returns `64` as a single scalar.** This is the behaviour that distinguishes\n `TYPE` from every IS-family classifier: they lift elementwise over an array and return a mask,\n while `TYPE` looks at the argument as a whole and reports \"this is an array\". The reference\n engine implements exactly that. It makes `TYPE` the only cheap way to ask \"did this expression\n produce an array?\".\n- **Code 128, \"compound data\", is in the documentation and is not reachable in the reference\n engine**, whose declared code map has no 128 case. What produces a 128 in current Excel — if\n anything still does — the Handbook does not know. This is the page's clearest documented /\n implemented gap and is probe 1 below.\n- **Codes 8 and 32 do not appear** in Microsoft's table.\n\n\n", "sources": "- Microsoft, \"TYPE function\" —\n .\n Read for this page: the full code table verbatim, including the 128 row, and both remarks —\n the `ARGUMENT`/`INPUT` usage note and the statement that `TYPE` cannot detect a formula.\n- Microsoft, \"IS functions\" —\n .\n Read for the classifier correspondences named above.\n- Handbook, [the value universe](../model/01-value-universe.md) — the kind inventory, the\n Empty-at-publication rule, and rich values as an extension layer.\n\n\n", "version-differences": "The recorded environments below distinguish a reading from a same-input comparison. Counts describe captured inputs in each environment; overlapping captures and comparisons are not totals of unique worksheet calls.\n\n| Excel 16.0 build | Platform and CPU | Captured inputs |\n|---|---|---:|\n| 20430 | Windows, 64-bit, CPU not recorded | 1,227 |\n\nThe record contains no same-input comparison between these environments. Reading different inputs on different builds does not establish either a version change or cross-build agreement.\n\n[Recorded environments and comparison details](https://github.com/DnaCalc/ExcelFunctionsHandbook/blob/5dc75391aa5125ccc5abdb095da85950980d6fd8/content/evidence/environments/FUNC.TYPE.json).", "what-it-does": "\n`TYPE(value)` returns a number naming the value's kind. Microsoft's table, verbatim:\n\n| If value is | `TYPE` returns |\n|---|---|\n| Number | 1 |\n| Text | 2 |\n| Logical value | 4 |\n| Error value | 16 |\n| Array | 64 |\n| Compound data | 128 |\n\nThe codes are **powers of two** — 1, 2, 4, 16, 64, 128 — with 8 and 32 unused in the published\ntable. That is not decoration: the numbering descends from a bit-flag encoding of admissible\nargument types in Excel's macro-sheet heritage, which is also why the documentation's own\nexamples of the function's usefulness are the macro-era `ARGUMENT` and `INPUT`. Nothing in\n`TYPE`'s worksheet behaviour requires you to know that, but it explains why the codes skip.\n\n`TYPE` answers the same question as the IS-family classifiers, in one call instead of five, and\nin a form you can `CHOOSE` or `SWITCH` on. Where `ISNUMBER` is a boolean, `TYPE` is a\ndiscriminator.\n\nMicrosoft states one limit explicitly and it is the one users trip over: \"You cannot use TYPE to\ndetermine whether a cell contains a formula. TYPE only determines the type of the resulting, or\ndisplayed, value. If value is a cell reference to a cell that contains a formula, TYPE returns\nthe type of the formula's resulting value.\" `ISFORMULA` is the function for that question.\n\n\n\n### Arguments\n\n\n`value` — required, exactly one. The published signature is `TYPE(value)`.\n\nThe values-only resolution is also why a single-cell reference and the value inside it are\nindistinguishable to `TYPE` — see [the call pipeline](../model/03-call-pipeline.md) on the 1x1\ncollapse.\n\n\n" }, "signature": { "display": "TYPE(value)", "parameters": [ { "description": null, "name": "value", "optional": false, "repeats": false } ], "trailing_repeats": false }, "sources": { "metadata": { "admission": { "label": "implemented", "reason": null }, "arity": { "max": 1, "min": 1 }, "category": "Information functions", "classification": { "arg_preparation_profile": "ValuesOnlyPreAdapter", "coercion_lift_profile": "Custom", "determinism_class": "Deterministic", "error_collapse_profile": "None", "fec_dependency_profile": "None", "host_interaction_class": "None", "kernel_signature_class": "Custom", "rich_value_usage": "RichBlind", "surface_fec_dependency_profile": "RefOnly", "thread_safety_class": "SafePure", "volatility_class": "NonVolatile" }, "descriptions": { "long": null, "short": "Number saying what kind of value an argument is", "short_source": "dna-calc-own" }, "docs": { "english_description": "Returns a number indicating the data type of a value", "microsoft_url": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/type-function-45b4e688-4bc3-48b3-a105-ffa892995899" }, "entry_kind": "built_in_function", "localized_family_names": null, "localized_names": [ { "locale": "ar-SA", "name": "النوع" }, { "locale": "bg-BG", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "cs-CZ", "name": "TYPE (TYP)" }, { "locale": "da-DK", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "de-DE", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "el-GR", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "en-AU", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "en-GB", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "en-US", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "es-ES", "name": "TIPO" }, { "locale": "et-EE", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "fi-FI", "name": "TYPE (Tyyppi)" }, { "locale": "fr-FR", "name": "TYPE (TYPE)" }, { "locale": "he-IL", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "hr-HR", "name": "VRSTA" }, { "locale": "hu-HU", "name": "TYPE (TÍPUS)" }, { "locale": "id-ID", "name": "TIPE" }, { "locale": "it-IT", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "ja-JP", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "ko-KR", "name": "TYPE(종류)" }, { "locale": "lt-LT", "name": "TIPAS" }, { "locale": "lv-LV", "name": "TIPS" }, { "locale": "nb-NO", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "nl-NL", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "pl-PL", "name": "TYPE (TYP)" }, { "locale": "pt-BR", "name": "TIPO" }, { "locale": "pt-PT", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "ro-RO", "name": "TIP" }, { "locale": "ru-RU", "name": "TYPE (ТИП)" }, { "locale": "sk-SK", "name": "TYP" }, { "locale": "sl-SI", "name": "TYPE (VRSTA)" }, { "locale": "sr-Latn-RS", "name": "TIP" }, { "locale": "sv-SE", "name": "TYP" }, { "locale": "th-TH", "name": "ชนิด" }, { "locale": "tr-TR", "name": "TÜR" }, { "locale": "uk-UA", "name": "TYPE (ТИП)" }, { "locale": "vi-VN", "name": "LOẠI" }, { "locale": "zh-CN", "name": "TYPE" }, { "locale": "zh-HK", "name": "TYPE (類型)" }, { "locale": "zh-TW", "name": "TYPE (類型)" } ], "signature": { "display": "TYPE(value)", "parameters": [ { "description": null, "name": "value", "optional": false, "repeats": false } ], "trailing_repeats": false }, "surface_name": "TYPE", "version_marker": null, "xlcall": { "code": "86", "symbol": "xlfType" } }, "microsoft": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/type-function-45b4e688-4bc3-48b3-a105-ffa892995899" }, "try_it": { "formula": "=TYPE(0)" }, "url": "https://handbook.dnacalc.com/functions/TYPE.html", "variants": [], "versions": [ { "behaviour": "1,227 captured inputs are indexed for this environment. Capture dates: 2026-09-29 to 2026-09-29. This is a reading count, not a comparison with another build.", "excel_build": "16.0 build 20430", "platform": "Windows, 64-bit, CPU not recorded", "sources": [ "https://github.com/DnaCalc/ExcelFunctionsHandbook/blob/5dc75391aa5125ccc5abdb095da85950980d6fd8/content/evidence/environments/FUNC.TYPE.json" ] } ] }