Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Mar 13, 2026

Looking for use cases of function TYPE

What do you use the TYPE function for? I’m not looking for a general explanation of what the TYPE function can do—I already know that. For example, why do you use the TYPE function instead of functio...

excel

Formulas and Functions

Patrick2788

Silver Contributor

Mar 13, 2026

TYPE is helpful for two things mostly:

64 - array detection (can also use ROWS and COLUMNS for dimension check)

128 - compound data

This is a basic example of using TYPE to validate the function input of a Lambda:

MyLambda=
LAMBDA(
    array,
    [function],
LET(
    // Check optional function input, default to SUM if omitted
    function,   IF(ISOMITTED(function),SUM,function),

    // Compound data - TYPE = 128 - valid function
    InValidFn?, TYPE(function) <> 128,

    // Halt function if supplied function is invalid
    IF(InValidFn?,"#INVALID-FUNCTION!",function(array))));

// Sheet level formula: =MyLambda(arr,AVERAGE)