Extract and sum numbers from a range of cells containing text and ignore empty cells

Question

I have a Google spreadsheet with cells having the following format:

A1: 1 Y
A2: 0.5 N
A3: 2 N
A4: (empty)
A5: (empty)
A6: 1.3 N

I would like to sum the numbers in the cells, i.e. (1+0.5+2+1.3) while ignoring empty cells.

This is the formula I'm using right now, but it does not work with empty cells:

ARRAYFORMULA(SUM(VALUE(LEFT(A1:A6,FIND(" ",A1:A6)-1))))

This is the error I get in Google Sheets:

Function FIND parameter 2 value should be non-empty.

How I can modify this formula to ignore empty cells?

Answer 1

I would use a helper column but if you can't suggest:

=arrayformula(sum(value(if(A1:A="","",left(A1:A,find(" ",A1:A))))))  

I assume only six cells was for example purposes.

Answer 2

Use IFERROR

Example

=ARRAYFORMULA(SUM(IFERROR(VALUE(LEFT(A1:A6,FIND(" ",A1:A6)-1)),)))