pulling row number into query google spreadsheet - google-sheets

Question

I have a data set that looks like this: starting on A1 with "1"
1 a
2 b
3 c
4 d
Column A is an arrayformula =arrayformula(row(b1:b))
Column B is manual input
i want to query the database and finding the row of the item by match column B so i have code as such
=query("A1:B","select A where B like '%c%')
this should give me "3"
My question:
is there a way to pull the 1-4 numbers into the query line? with something like array formula row(b1:b). I don't want to waste an extra column on column A
so basically I want just the manual input and when i query it gives me the row number.
No script code please.
I've tried a few things and it didn't work.
Looking for a solutions that starts with
=query()

Answer 1

You can also use a formula to pull in more than one row in the dataset which matches the condition, if this is important to you:
=arrayformula(filter(row(B:B); B:B="c"))
And you can have wildcard type operators, under certain circumstances (you are going to match text or items that can look like text (so numbers can be treated as text - but boolean will need more steps); that the dataset is not huge), using regular expressions. e.g.
=arrayformula(filter(row(B:B); regexmatch(B:B, "(c|d)")))
You could also use standard spreadsheet wildcard operators, e.g.
=arrayformula(filter(row(B:B); countif(B:B, "*c*")))
Explanation: In this case, the filter will be true when countif is greater than zero, i.e. when it sees something with a letter c in it, since spreadsheets see a value greater than zero as a boolean true and so, for that row where there is a countif match, there will be a a filter match, and so it will display that row (indeed, it is a similar situation with the regexmatch creating a true when there is a match of either c or d, in the case above).
Personally, I wanted to learn regex a bit, so I would go towards the regexmatch option. But that is your choice.
You can also, of course, create the match outside of the cell. This makes it easy to create a list of matches that you want to satisfy elsewhere on the sheet. So you could have a column of words or parts of words, from Z2 downwards, and then join them together in cell Z1 for example like this
="("&join("|",filter(Z2:Z50,len(Z2:Z50)))&")"
Then your filter function would look like this:
=arrayformula(filter(row(B:B), regexmatch(B:B, Z1)))
If you want to use like operator in the query function, you can try something like this:
=arrayformula(query(if({1,0}, B:B,row(B:B)),"select Col2 where Col1 like '%c%' "))
You can also use the regular expressions in the query function, for example:
=arrayformula(query(if({1,0}, B:B,row(B:B)),"select Col2 where Col1 matches '(.*c.*|.*d.*)' "))

Answer 2

I'm not entirely clear on the question, but as I understand it, you want to be able to enter a formula, and have it return the row number of the matched item in a range? I'm not sure where array formulas come in.
If I've understood your question correctly, this should do the trick:
=MATCH("C",B1:B,0)
In your example, this returns 3.
Please forgive me if I've misunderstood your question.
Note: If there are multiple matches, this will return the row number for the first instance of your search.

Answer 3

=QUERY({A1:A,ARRAYFORMULA(ROW(A1:A))},"SELECT Col2 WHERE Col1 LIKE '%c%'")