VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language

Format, Format$ Functions

Named Arguments

No

Syntax

Format(expression[, format[, firstdayofweek[, _
       firstweekofyear]]])

expression

Use: Required

Data Type: String/Numeric

Any valid string or numeric expression.

format

Use: Optional

A valid named or user-defined format expression.

firstdayofweek

Use: Optional

Data Type: Numeric

A constant that specifies the first day of the week.

firstweekofyear

Use: Optional

Data Type: Numeric

A constant that specifies the first week of the year.

Return Value

A variant of subtype string containing the formatted expression.

Description

Allows you to use either predefined or user-defined formats to create an infinite variety of ways to output string, numeric, and date/time data. It's possibly the most complex single function call in VB.

Rules at a Glance

• See CDate for an explanation of the firstdayofweek and firstweekofyear arguments.

• format can be either a predefined or a user-defined format.

• User-defined formats for numeric values are created with up to four sections. Each section is used for a different type of numeric value and is delimited with a semicolon. The four possible sections are shown in the following table:

  Section	Applies to
  1	All values, if used alone; positive values, if used with more than one section
  2	Negative values
  3	Zero values
  4	Null values

• It's not necessary to include all four sections in the format clause. However, the number of sections present determines what types of numeric values each section defines, as the following ...