Concatenating only filled cells

Question

I currently have a spreadsheet to keep track of scores in a card game. There can be between 2 and 5 players. I have the following:

| Players  |
|----------|
| Dave     |
| Paul     |
| John     |
|          |
|          |

At the moment I use

= JOIN( " vs " ; C10:C14 )

But the problem is I then end up with "Dave vs Paul vs John vs vs". Is there a way to make it say "Dave vs Paul vs John", but if I had more players, Dave vs Paul vs John vs Rob with one formula?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, by FILTERing the array:

= JOIN( " vs " ; FILTER(C10:C14; NOT(C10:C14 = "") ))

Thus, the JOIN method will only operate on non-empty cells.

I have set up an example spreadsheet.

Also, check the Google Spreadsheets function list (search for FILTER).