VBScript in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

StrComp Function

Syntax

StrComp(string1, string2[, compare])

string1

Use: Required

Data Type: String

Any string expression.

string2

Use: Required

Data Type: String

Any string expression.

compare

Use: Optional

Data Type: Integer constant

The type of string comparison to perform.

Return Value

An Integer.

Description

Determines whether two strings are equal and which of two strings is greater.

Rules at a Glance

• The following intrinsic constants are available as the settings for compare:

Constant	Value	Comparison to perform
vbBinaryCompare	0	Binary (default)
vbTextCompare	1	Textual

• If compare isn’t specified, its value defaults to vbBinaryCompare. In other words, the comparison of string1 and string2 is case-sensitive.

• This table describes the possible return values from the StrComp function:

Scenario	Return value
string1 < string2	-1
string1 = string2	0
string1 > string2	1
string1 or string2 is Null	Null

Programming Tips and Gotchas

• If you just need to know whether string1 is greater than string2 (or vice versa), couldn’t you simply use the < or > comparison operators? When you’re dealing with strings of characters, VBScript sees each character as a number. Simply using the comparison operators therefore compares the numerical value of one string with the other. Take this scenario:

  Dim sString1
  Dim sString2
  
  sString1 = "hello world"
  sString2 = "HELLO WORLD"

  Subjectively, because of the significance of uppercase letters in text, we’d probably say that sString2 is greater than sString1. But VBScript sees ...