VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

CStr Function

Named Arguments

No

Syntax

CStr(expression)

expression (required; any)

Any numeric, date, string, or Boolean expression

Return Value

expression converted to a string

Description

Returns a string representation of expression

Rules at a Glance

If expression is Boolean, the function returns one of the strings "True" or "False". For an expression that can be interpreted as a date, the return value is a string representation of that date, in the short date format of the host computer. For a numeric expression, the return is a string representing the number.

Example

Dim sMyString as String
sMyString = CStr(100)

Programming Tips and Gotchas

• The string representation of Boolean values is either "True" or "False", as opposed to their underlying values of 0 and -1.

• Uninitialized numeric data types passed to CStr return “0.”

• An uninitialized date variable passed to CStr returns “12:00:00AM.”

• Like most of the conversion functions, CStr is not actually a function in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace. Instead, it is similar to a Visual C++ macro; the compiler translates the function call into inline code.

See Also

Str Function