Val
Returns the numbers contained in a string as a numeric value of appropriate type.
Syntax: Val( string )
- string
- required Any valid string expression.
The return type is Double.
The Val function stops reading the string at the first character that it can’t recognize as part of a number. Symbols and characters that are often considered parts of numeric values, such as dollar signs and commas, are not recognized.
However, the function recognizes the radix prefixes &O (for octal) and &H (for hexadecimal). Blanks, tabs, and linefeed characters are stripped from the argument.
The following returns the value 1615198:
Val(" 1615 198th Street N.E.")
In the following code, Val returns the decimal value -1 for the hexadecimal value shown:
Val("&HFFFF")
Note
The Val function recognizes only the period (.) as a valid decimal separator. When different decimal separators are used, as in international applications, use CDbl instead to convert a string to a number.
Note
The Val function recognizes deprecated data type suffixes prior to conversion and may result in a type-mismatch error. For example, fifty percent represented as the string "50%" will convert as expected to 50, but Val("50.5%") will raise an error because the percent symbol is interpreted as a suffix declaring the data type as Integer, which it is not in this case. The full list of data type suffixes is Single (!), Currency (@), Double (#), String ($), Integer (%), Long (&), and LongLong (^) for 64-bit hosts.
Example
This example uses the Val function to return the numbers contained in a string.
Dim MyValue
MyValue = Val("2457") ' Returns 2457.
MyValue = Val(" 2 45 7") ' Returns 2457.
MyValue = Val("24 and 57") ' Returns 24.