VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Concatenation Operators

VB.NET has two string concatenation operators:

&

The ampersand symbol is the recommended concatenation operator. It is used to bind a number of string variables together, creating one string from two or more individual strings. Any nonstring variable or expression is converted to a string prior to concatenation (even if Option Strict is on). Its syntax is:

                        result = expression1 & expression2...

+

Although in principle the + sign is identical to the & concatenation operator, it also doubles as the addition operator. Hence, as Microsoft states:

When you use the + operator, you may not be able to determine whether addition or string concatenation will occur. Use the & operator for concatenation to eliminate ambiguity and provide self-documenting code.