Visual Basic 2005 in a Nutshell, Third Edition

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Chapter 12: The Language Reference

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2006 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Description

The Len function returns the number of characters within a string or the storage size in

bytes for a given variable.

Usage at a Glance

•Ifexpression contains Nothing, Len returns 0.

• For string variables, Len returns the number of characters in the string. For all

other types,

Len returns the number of bytes required to store the content.

•Ifexpression is an array, you must also specify a valid subscript. Len cannot be

used to determine the total number of elements in, or the total size of, an array.

•

Len cannot accurately report the number of bytes required to store structures that

contain variable-length strings. If you need to know how many bytes of storage

space will be required by a structure that includes string members, you can fix the

length of the strings by using the

<VBFixedString(length)> attribute in the

Structure statement. For details, see the Structure...End Structure Statement entry.

• For strings, Len is functionally similar to the String data type’s Length public

instance method, although there are some differences for empty and nonstandard

strings.

See Also

Structure...End Structure Statement, VBFixedString Attribute

Like Operator

Syntax

Dim result As Boolean = string Like pattern

string (required; String)

The string to be ...