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This question is similar to mine, but all the answers assume that the output of the original formula is a number.

What if I want to add a comment to a query formula that outputs an array of strings and numbers? Would there be a way to add a comment to it?

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  • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
    – Community Bot
    Sep 17, 2021 at 16:33

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You can use the iferror() function to write a comment combined with an operation that is guaranteed to produce an error, such as divide by zero, and place the original formula as the second parameter in the iferror(), like this:

=iferror( "this is a comment"/0, query(A1:C, "select A, C", 1) )

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    – Rubén - Volunteer Moderator - ♦
    Sep 17, 2021 at 16:38
  • Yes... added an explanation. It feels a bit artificial though. Function documentation is readily available in the formula editor, and divide by zero is a well known error.
    – doubleunary
    Sep 17, 2021 at 17:58
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From https://www.benlcollins.com/spreadsheets/google-sheets-formulas-techniques/

Add comments to your formulas, using the N function. N returns the argument provided as a number. If the argument is text, inside quotation marks, the N function returns 0.

So we can use it to add a comment like this:

=SUM(A1:A100) + N("Sums the first 100 rows of column A")

which is effectively the same as:

=SUM(A1:A100) + 0

which is just:

=SUM(A1:A100)

And from How to add a note or comment into a formula in Google Sheets?

For formulas that generate text, you can add T() around the N() function:

="…" & T(N("your comment here"))
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