& or +

[André]

Hi guys, a thought:

In concatenating strings one can use & or +, what is best?

What's your opinion?


André

[ca9mbu]

I only ever use & to concatenate strings, for one simple reason...it's fail safe.

Because + is used to add values (when they're numbers), VB may under certain circumstances try to add strings together.

Take the following example

1+1=2

"Hello" & "my name is"...would give "Hello my name is"

"Hello" + "my name is" may actually give an integer value based on the value of the characters added together.

Hope this helps

Matt

[André]

It's not a problem, I also only use &, but I have seen other peoples sources where + is used for this purpose.
I agree with you completely!

[michelle]

Hello André

The & sign can also be handy when you are working with an Access database.

If a field off a record is never filled in and you want to send this information to a TextBox it will give an error.

When you are using:

Text1.text = CustomerDYN!YourField 'gives an error

Text1.text = "" & CustomerDYN!YourField ' don't gives an error.

I do think the & sign is the only good choice (personal)

Michelle

[Frederik Gekiere]

msgbox (1 + 2) results in 3
msgbox (1 & 2) results in 12

therefore, if you want to concatenate 2 strings (or numbers), always use & !

[Mark Sreeves]

Hey michelle that's really good!

I usually check for IsNull() but your method is obviously quicker!