The "search-range" argument represents a range (or an array) with rows to filter. It can be of any size up to the maximum number of columns in a worksheet minus one (as the 1st output column may additionally contain hyperlinks).

If there are any rows found in the search range, FILTER() returns an array with the corresponding number of columns.

If you specify the "hyperlink" option as described below and apply the Format > Hyperlink style to the first column of the range when the returned array is, this first column will contain hyperlinks to the original rows in "search-range".
Thus the filtered rows/records can be easily edited. After clicking a given link (or pressing SPACE) and completing editing of the source data, you just click the "back" bookmark toolbar button (or press Alt+F11) to go back to browsing results in the same place.

The "filters" argument represents a range or an array with filtering expressions for the subsequent columns in the "search-range" range. Thus the number of cells in "filters" must not exceed the number of columns in the "search-range" range. The n-th cell position in this range/array is a filter expression for the the n-th column in the "search-range" data range.
If there is no filter for a given column, the corresponding filter cell can be left empty.

Entering filters in worksheet cells is easy: you can use the Format > Search Filter format style for the desirable cells. This will display formatted filters with e.g. syntax coloring for Regex expressions and graphic sort order indications. When editing such cells, GS-Calc displays a cell-aligned dialog box with all the filter specification and sort options:

Example

The filter options are as follow:

• Cell reference - the filter text is cell reference (for the "between" filter type: two references)
• Allow empty matches - required by RegEx if you want to use expressions like \A\z
• Match case
• Word sort order - when sorting and searching for duplicates ignore punctuations and non-word characters
• Sorting and the sort key index - for a single column sorting it's always "1st key"; if you want to use multi-column sorting you must specify subsequent key indices ("2nd", "3rd", ..."6th") for the other sorted columns. If there are repeated indices, FILTER() returns the "#VALUE!" error code.

Note: The "duplicates" filters are handled slighly differently than the other filters. The "options" parameter enables you to specify whether searching for duplicates should be performed before or after all other filters are applied.

You can also specify filters directly as text cells, e.g. if you want to generate them by your formulas.

The "hyperlink-path" argument represents a worksheet/workbook path that will be be used along with cell references if the "include hyperlinks" options is specified (see below).

For example: sheet1, folder1\sheet1, c:\documents\[sample.gsc]sheet1

On the above example screen, the hyperlink path is left empty as both the data (A1:H100000) and the result (=FILTER(A1:H100000, ...) are in the same worksheet.

The "option" argument is a number and can be 0 or a combination (a sum from 1 to 7) of the following:

• 1 - include hyperlinks to the original search-range data rows in the first column in of the FILTER() function results
• 2 - perform searching for duplicates AFTER all other filters are applied; by default the searches for duplicates are performed first
• 4 - as FILTER() is supposed to offer the best possible speed when handling very large tables, by default it doesn't create calculation chains with formulas placed in the "search-range" range; if e.g. some column in the "search-range" consists of formulas and you want to make sure FILTER() is executed after they're updated, add this "4" value to options. Please note that this will result in significantly slower filtering.

The default value is 0.

Note: If you're using FILTER() for very large data sets and if you expect you'll be changing this (and other) options frequently, use a cell reference for "options" in FILTER() instead of a hard-code value because re-editing the FILTER() formula cell may activate the "Undo" for most of the target range and cause unnecessary delays before actual filtering.

The optional "empty-string" argument represents a number or a string that the FILTER() function is to return if no matching rows are found for the specified filters. If it's omitted, FILTER() returns the "#N/A!" error code in such a case.