CLng causes error....sometimes!

[Pallex]

Check out the following piece of code.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim V1 As String
V1 = "£0.00"
MsgBox "about to do clng of v1"
If CLng(V1) = 0 Then
MsgBox "Just did clng of v1, val = 0 "
Else
MsgBox "Just did clng of v1, val != 0 "
End If
End Sub

On my machine, it works fine. On another, the line with CLng in it terminates the program with a `run-time error 13: type mismatch`.

I know CLng uses your locale settings, but this is unacceptable, isnt it? Or is it my fault. I`m sure i`ve had this problem before and its `gone away`, though its not going anywhere at the moment!

Perhaps a few of you could check this out and see what happens on your machine?


Thanks,
Alex.

[samdv]

I can't really see why it would work on your machine in the first place!?!?! I think your machine's the wierd one out of the two!

You've started off by dimming V1 as a string value, and you've put what is essentially a string (a bunch of numbers, letters and symbols) into that variable. Fair enough. However, a long value only stores numbers (and decimal points) so converting from a string to a long value you must have only numbers (or decimal points) in the string in the first place, because VB cannot convert "£" to a number.

One way to get round it is to strip off the first characted (ie/ the "£" sign).

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim V1 As String
Dim V2 As String
V1 = "£0.00"
'save all of the characters except the first one to a
'new variable
V2 = Right(V1,Len(V1)-1)
'put the value of V2 back into the original variable V1
V1 = V2
MsgBox "about to do clng of v1"
If CLng(V1) = 0 Then
MsgBox "Just did clng of v1, val = 0 "
Else 
MsgBox "Just did clng of v1, val != 0 " 
End If
End Sub

I hope that works - I don't have VB with me so I can't check it - you'll have to do that. If it doesn't work then use common sense or tell me.

Incidentally, have you done C++ or JavaScript before VB?

Hoi Pallex,

The program crashes too on my system. I have the following
regional settings:
Currency Symbol $
Pos. of curr. symbol *1.1
Decimal symbol .
No of dig. after decimal 2
digit grouping symbol ,
number of dig. in group 3

The program ended oke after changing the pound to a dollar
sign.

I hope this helps. Let us know what you find.
Interesting problem.

GUUS

Shouldn't you be using CCur(V1) to do a currency conversion. That will take into account the regional settings etc. Once you've useed CCur, then you could cLng it, although that will lose the decimal places.

- gaffa

[Pallex]

Yeah, shortly after i posted my plea for help i worked out it was specifically the £ character in
Control Panel\Regional Settings\Currency\Currency symbol.

The problem was the same whether i used CLng or CCur. Ie it depended solely on what was in the setting mentioned above, not which function i used.

I think i would describe an app as `badly behaved` or `produces side-effects` if it set the value of this setting to what it wanted, as it obviously has system-wide implications (what if another app wanted the $ symbol), so the i guess the choice is to detect what the current setting is and complain if its not a £ symbol, or change all instaces of the CLng test to a custom subroutine.

Thanks,
Alex.