Microsoft Access VBA Macro Programming

String Types

If your variable will always contain text, you can declare it to be of typeString:

Dim temp as String

You can then use string handling functions to manipulate it. You can take sections from it,
search for a particular character, or turn it all into uppercase characters. For a more detailed
description, see the section “Functions” in Chapter 5.
A string is of variable length by default. The string grows or shrinks according to the data
in it. If you do not want this to happen, you can declare a fixed-length string by usingString
*size:

Dim temp as String * 50

This forces a string to be fixed at 50 characters in length. If your string is less than 50, it is
padded with spaces. If it is greater than 50 characters, the excess characters are truncated and
lost. So, although you do get control over the amount of memory being used because there is

Chapter 2: Variables, Arrays, Constants, and Data Types 21

Name Description

Type-Declaration

Character Range

Integer two-byte integer % –32,768 to 32,767

Long four-byte integer & –2,147,483,648 to 2,147,438,647

Single four-byte floating point

number

! –3.402823E38 to 1.401298E-45 (negative

values)

1.401298E-45 to 3.402823E38 (positive

values)

Double eight-byte floating point

number

# –1.79769313486232E308 to

–4.94065645841247E-324

(negative values)

4.94065645841247E-324 to

1.79769313486232E308

(positive values)

Currency eight-byte number with

fixed decimal point

@@ –922337203685477.5808 to

922337203685477.5807

Fixed Length

String

String of characters—

fixed length

$ 0 to approximately 65,400 characters

Variable

Length

String

String of characters—

variable length

$ 0 to approximately 2 billion characters

Variant Date/Time, floating point

number, or string

None Date Values: January 1, 0000 to December

31, 9999; numeric values: same range as

double; string values: same range as string

Table 2-2 Data Types Within VBA