VB6 Tutorial 36: Joining Strings

When we join two strings together, this is called concatenation. According to Merriam-Webster, concatenate means to “link together in a series or chain”. This lesson covers string concatenation.

Basic Concatenation

Concatenation can use ‘+’ operator. You can join multiple strings using the “+” operator.

Example

Private Sub cmdJoin_Click()
    Dim str As String, str1 As String, str2 As String
    str1 = "Visual"
    str2 = "Basic"
    str = str1 + str2
    Print str
End Sub

Output: visualbasic

The standard operator used to join strings is the ampersand (&).

Example

Private Sub cmdConcat_Click()
    Dim str As String, str1 As String, str2 As String
    str1 = "New"
    str2 = "Program"
    str = str1 & str2
    Print str
End Sub

Output: NewProgram

QuickHint:

Sometimes, the ‘&’ operator is a better choice for concatenation. If you join a string with a numeric value, the ‘+’ operator will show a Type Mismatch run-time error while the “&” operator will do the job without throwing an error. See the below example.

Example:

Dim n As Integer, s As String
n = 34
s = "one"
MsgBox n & s   'if you use +, it will show an error

The vbTab constant

vbTab is the constant for Tab character.

Example

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim s1 As String, s2 As String, str As String
    s1 = "Visual"
    s2 = "Basic"
    MsgBox s1 & vbTab & s2
End Sub

Output:

Visual     Basic

The vbCrLf constant

vbCrLf is the constant for Carriage-return/Line feed character.

Example

Dim s1 As String, s2 As String, str As String
s1 = "Visual"
s2 = "Basic"
MsgBox s1 & vbCrLf & s2

Output:

Visual
Basic

The semicolon ‘;’ operator

Semicolon in a Print statement suppresses the line feed. That is why when you print two consecutive strings using ‘;’ operator in between, you see two strings together. But this operator does NOT concatenate strings.

Example

Dim str As String, str1 As String, str2 As String
str1 = "One"
str2 = "Two"
Print str1; str2

Output:

OneTwo

Example

str1 = "One"
str2 = "Two"
Print str1; 
Print str2

Output: OneTwo