Programming Visual Basic 2005

Operators

An operator is a symbol (e.g., =, >, +) that causes VB.NET to take an action. That action might be assignment (=), addition of two values (+), or comparison of two values (>).

The simplest is the assignment operator:

myVariable = 15;

The single equal sign (=) is used to assign a value (15) to a variable (myVariable). If statements often use comparison operators :

if ( valueOne > valueTwo )

This If statement compares valueOne with valueTwo, and if the former is larger than the latter, the test evaluates True, and the If statement executes.

Arithmetic Operators

VB.NET uses seven arithmetic operators , six for standard calculations (+, −, *, ^, /, and \) and a seventh to return the remainder when dividing integers.

VB.NET offers two division operators: / and \. The right-facing division operator (/) returns a floating-point answer. If you divide 12/5, the answer is 2.4, as you would expect. This answer is returned as a Double. If you assign the returned value to an Integer, the decimal part is lopped off, and the result will be 2. If Option Strict is On (as it should be), you cannot assign the result to an Integer without explicitly casting, because you would lose the decimal portion of the answer.

The left-facing division operator (\) returns an Integer value. If you divide 12\5, the result is returned with a truncated integer: 2. No cast is needed (even with Option Strict On) because you've explicitly asked for the integer value.

The modulus operator (Mod) modulus operator (Mod) ...