How do i count the number of times a cell has been referenced by other cells' formulae?

Question

Hello,
I have a spreadsheet of recipes and ingredients that use checkboxes to let me know which recipes I can make based on the ingredients I have on-hand, using a formula like this one: =IF(AND('Spirits' :: A42,Mixers :: A18,Mixers :: A41,'Spirits' :: A25 ),Table 3 :: $A$2,Table 3 :: $A$3). If I've checked all of the boxes for ingredients that are required for any one of my recipes, the cell that the formula is in returns something like "YES"; otherwise, it returns a blank. It works well enough, but I'd like to include a cell next to each ingredient with a formula that will look through the hundreds of recipes, which all use a formula like the one above, and return a count of the number of times the ingredient's cell is referenced in those formulas. That way, I'll know which ingredients are the most commonly used in my eclectic collection of recipes. I thought something like =COUNTIF('Recipes' :: A2:A343, "=A2") would work, but it doesn't look at the cell references in the formulas, so no, it doesn't work. Any ideas? I'm using Numbers 2.3

Answer 1

Hello
There's no formula to inspect other formula in Numbers. So what you asked cannot be achived in such a way you described.
A simple alternative method would be to build recipe-ingredient matrix as follows.
E.g.
Table definitions:
Recipes
A1    Recipe \ Ingredient
A2    A
A3    B
A4    C
A5    D
A6    E
A7    F
A8    # recipes / ingredient
B1    X1
B2    TRUE
B3    FALSE
B4    TRUE
B5    FALSE
B6    TRUE
B7    FALSE
B8    =COUNTIF(B,TRUE)
C1    X2
C2    TRUE
C3    TRUE
C4    FALSE
C5    TRUE
C6    TRUE
C7    TRUE
C8    =COUNTIF(C,TRUE)
D1    X3
D2    FALSE
D3    TRUE
D4    FALSE
D5    TRUE
D6    FALSE
D7    TRUE
D8    =COUNTIF(D,TRUE)
E1    X4
E2    FALSE
E3    FALSE
E4    FALSE
E5    FALSE
E6    FALSE
E7    TRUE
E8    =COUNTIF(E,TRUE)
F1    Y1
F2    TRUE
F3    FALSE
F4    TRUE
F5    TRUE
F6    TRUE
F7    FALSE
F8    =COUNTIF(F,TRUE)
G1    Y2
G2    FALSE
G3    TRUE
G4    TRUE
G5    FALSE
G6    FALSE
G7    TRUE
G8    =COUNTIF(G,TRUE)
H1    Y3
H2    TRUE
H3    TRUE
H4    FALSE
H5    TRUE
H6    TRUE
H7    FALSE
H8    =COUNTIF(H,TRUE)
I1    Y4
I2    FALSE
I3    FALSE
I4    FALSE
I5    FALSE
I6    FALSE
I7    TRUE
I8    =COUNTIF(I,TRUE)
J1    in-stock?
J2    =SUMIF(B2:E2,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F2:I2,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B2:I2,TRUE)
J3    =SUMIF(B3:E3,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F3:I3,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B3:I3,TRUE)
J4    =SUMIF(B4:E4,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F4:I4,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B4:I4,TRUE)
J5    =SUMIF(B5:E5,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F5:I5,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B5:I5,TRUE)
J6    =SUMIF(B6:E6,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F6:I6,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B6:I6,TRUE)
J7    =SUMIF(B7:E7,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(X::$C$2:$C$5))+SUMIF(F7:I7,TRUE,TRANSPOSE(Y::$C$2:$C$5))=COUNTIF(B7:I7,TRUE)
J8   
X
A1    Ingredient
A2    X1
A3    X2
A4    X3
A5    X4
B1    in-stock?
B2    TRUE
B3    TRUE
B4    TRUE
B5    FALSE
C1    code
C2    =IF(B2,1,0)
C3    =IF(B3,1,0)
C4    =IF(B4,1,0)
C5    =IF(B5,1,0)
Y
A1    Ingredient
A2    Y1
A3    Y2
A4    Y3
A5    Y4
B1    in-stock?
B2    TRUE
B3    FALSE
B4    TRUE
B5    FALSE
C1    code
C2    =IF(B2,1,0)
C3    =IF(B3,1,0)
C4    =IF(B4,1,0)
C5    =IF(B5,1,0)
In "Recipe" table, the first row is header row and the last row is footer row.
Hope this may help,
H