Should i convert string to number before comparing against a number or leave as is

**welchs101** · 01-06-2015, 11:52 AM

Hi,

I have a question and would like a recommendation:

I have a situation where i have string "tempstring" and

tempstring = "1"

if i do the following conditional

If tempstring > 0 Then
    MsgBox ("greater than 0")
Else
    MsgBox ("NOT greater than 0")
End If

it seems to work......and i dont know why? if i change assignment to tempstring = "0" then it still works. Dont know why.

Also, i was thinking that it would not work and that i should convert the string to a number first but if it works should i?

**AB33** · 01-06-2015, 12:02 PM

No necessarily!
If you are comparing the same data type-string with a string or a number with a number, you do not need to convert one to another. However, if one cell is formatted or declared as a string, another one as a different data, they will not match.

**MrShorty** · 01-06-2015, 12:04 PM

A lot depends on what "greater than" and "less than" mean to you.

As text strings: the text string "2" is greater than the text string "10"
As numbers: the number 2 is less than the number 10.

The examples you give just happen to be the same whether as text string or as number, but there are definitely examples where they are not. You as the programmer will need to understand how number sort order and text sort order are different and will need to decide which is more correct for you situation, or if it really matters at all.