VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Name

DateSerial Function

Class

Microsoft.VisualBasic.DateAndTime

Syntax

DateSerial(year, month, day)

year (required; Integer)

Number between 100 and 9999, inclusive, or a numeric expression

month (required; Integer)

Any numeric expression to express the month between 1 and 12

day (required; Integer)

Any numeric expression to express the day between 1 and 31

Return Value

A Date representing the date specified by the arguments

Description

Returns a Date whose value is specified by the three date components (year, month, and day).

For the function to succeed, all three components must be present, and all must be numeric values. The value returned by the function takes the short date format defined by the Regional Settings applet in the Control Panel of the client machine.

Rules at a Glance

• If the value of a particular element exceeds its normal limits, DateSerial adjusts the date accordingly. For example, if you tried DateSerial(96,2,31) — February 31, 1996 — DateSerial returns March 2, 1996.

• You can specify expressions or formulas that evaluate to individual date components as parameters to DateSerial. For example, DateSerial(98,10+9,23) returns 23 March 1999. This makes it easier to use DateSerial to form dates whose individual elements are unknown at design time or that are created on the fly as a result of user input.

Example

Dim iYear As Integer = 1987
Dim iMonth As Integer = 3 + 11
Dim iday As Integer = 16

MsgBox(DateSerial(iYear, iMonth, iday))

Programming Tips and Gotchas

• If any of the ...