VarType Function (Visual Basic)

Returns an Integer value that contains the data type classification of a variable.

Public Function VarType(ByVal VarName As Object) As VariantType

Parameters

• VarName
  Required. Object variable. If Option Strict is Off, you can pass a variable of any data type except a structure.

Remarks

The integer value returned by VarType is a member of the VariantType Enumeration.

The following table shows the values returned by VarType for special cases of VarName.

Data type represented by VarName	Value returned by VarType
Nothing (Visual Basic)	VariantType.Object
DBNull	VariantType.Null
Enumeration	Underlying data type (SByte, Byte, Short, UShort, Integer, UInteger, Long, or ULong)
Array	Bitwise OR of array element type and VariantType.Array
Array of arrays	Bitwise OR of VariantType.Object and VariantType.Array
Structure (System.ValueType)	VariantType.UserDefinedType
Exception	VariantType.Error
Unknown	VariantType.Object

Example

The following example uses the VarType function to return data type classification information about several variables.

Dim testString As String = "String for testing" 
Dim testObject As New Object 
Dim testNumber, testArray(5) As Integer 
Dim testVarType As VariantType
testVarType = VarType(testVarType)
' Returns VariantType.Integer.
testVarType = VarType(testString)
' Returns VariantType.String.
testVarType = VarType(testObject)
' Returns VariantType.Object.
testVarType = VarType(testNumber)
' Returns VariantType.Integer.
testVarType = VarType(testArray)
' Returns the bitwise OR of VariantType.Array and VariantType.Integer.

Smart Device Developer Notes

This function is not supported.

Requirements

Namespace: Microsoft.VisualBasic

Module: Information

Assembly: Visual Basic Runtime Library (in Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll)

See Also

Reference

Data Type Summary (Visual Basic)

Object Data Type

VariantType Enumeration