VBScript tutorial Lesson 3 VBScript Data Type

What is the VBScript data type?

VBScript has only one data type called variant. Variant is a special data type. It can contain different types of information according to the method used. Because variant is the only data type in VBScript, it is also the data type returned by all functions in VBScript.

The simplest variant can contain numbers or strings. Variant is used as a number in the numeric context and as a string in the string context. That is to say, if you use data that looks like a number, VBScript assumes it is a number and processes it in a numeric way. Similarly, if the data used can only be a string, VBScript will process it by string. Of course, you can also include a number in quotation marks ("") to make it a string.

Variant subtype

In addition to a simple number or string, variant can further differentiate the specific meaning of the value information. For example, a value is used to indicate a date or time. When such data is used together with other date or time data, the result is always expressed as a date or time. Of course, from a Boolean value to a floating point number, the numerical value information is diverse. The numeric information type contained in variant is called a subtype. In most cases, you can put the required data into variant, and variant will perform operations in the way that best applies to the data it contains.

The following table lists the data subtypes contained in variant:

Child type
Empty

Uninitialized VARIANT. For numeric variables, the value is 0; for string variables, the value is a string of zero length ("").

Null
Variant that does not contain any valid data.

Boolean
Contains true or false.

Byte
Contains an integer between 0 and 255.

Integer
Contains an integer between-32,768 and 32,767.
Currency
-922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807.

Long
Contains an integer between-2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647.

Single
Contains a single-precision floating point number. The negative value ranges from-3.402823e38 to-1.401298e-45, and the positive value ranges from 1.401298e-45 to 3.402823e38.
Double
Contains a double-precision floating point number. The negative value ranges from-1.79769313486232e308 to-4.94065645841247e-324. The positive value ranges from 4.94065645841247e-324 to 1.79769313486232e.

Date (time)
Contains the number indicating the date. The date range is from January 1, January 1, 100 AD to January 1, December 31, 9999 AD.
String
Contains a variable-length string. The maximum length can be 2 billion characters.

Object
Contains objects.

Error
Contains the error code.

You can use the Conversion Function to convert the subtypes of data. In addition, you can use the vartype function to return the variant sub-type of data.