title: Google Sheet Formula: How to convert a string to Bool value?
body: <p>In Google Sheet strings are deemed as False while numbers True.</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>=OR(FALSE,A1)</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>If A1 is a number other than 0, then it returns TRUE; if it is a string, then it returns False.</p>
  <p>My real case is that I am using VLOOKUP to check if payer_info(email and phone) exists in our database</p>
  <pre><code>=OR(
  IFERROR(VLOOKUP(payer_phone,'student_list'!C:C,1,false),false), 
  IFERROR(VLOOKUP(payer_email,'student_list'!D:D,1,false),false)
  )
  </code></pre>
  <p>I expect the above formula to return TRUE if <code>payer_email</code> exists in <code>'student_list'!D:D</code> or <code>payer_phone</code> exists in <code>'student_list'!C:C</code>. However, <code>IFERROR(VLOOKUP(payer_email,'student_list'!D:D,1,false),false)</code> will be deemed as FALSE in the <code>OR</code> function because it returns the email string.</p>
  <p>So, is there any formula I can use to convert a not empty string to TRUE?</p>
  <pre><code>what_function(IFERROR(VLOOKUP(payer_email,'student_list'!D:D,1,false),false))
  </code></pre>
  <p>If VLOOKUP does find the value then it should return TRUE, if not it returns FALSE.</p>