Variant Data Types and Coercion

The variant data type is capable of storing numbers, strings, dates, and times. When using a variant, you do not have to explicitly convert a variable from one data type to another. This data type conversion is handled automatically, and is termed data type coercion.

' declares variant variable

Dim vntVar 

' assign numeric 10 to variant

vntVar = 10 

' add numeric 8 to numeric variant value

vntVar = vntVar + 8 

' convert variant to string value and concatenates strings

vntVar = "F" & vntVar 

' print string "F18"

print vntVar
		

Numeric characters inside quotes ("567") will be stored and treated as a string in a variant data type variable. If this string (containing numeric characters) is subsequently used in a numeric operation, it will be coerced into a numeric data type and treated as a number in the operation. Conversely, numeric characters stored as a number data type in a variant variable, and subsequently used in an operation with a string, will be coerced into a string data type, and treated as a string value in the operation.