What Does This Mean?

[Herman Jones]

I found this statement in some sample code. It seems to be syntactically
correct. What do the brackets around "String" mean?

Dim sWork As [String] = "Some number of characters"

[Brian Gideon]

Herman,

No, the bracket does not have alternate meaning when used with data
types. Brackets allow you to create escaped or verbatim identifiers.
This is useful when you need to refer to an identifier that is also a
keyword. The most common scenario is the interaction between different
programming languages. For example, a C# programmer may think Alias
would be a good choice for a property name not knowing that it is a
keyword in VB. A VB programmer would need to use brackets when
referring to that property.

Brian

Herman Jones wrote:

This example seems to be a little different. In your example you're using
[Dim] as a variable name. It comes before the "As" keyword.

The sample code I found has [String] after the "As" keyword. I don't thing
that "String" is being used as the variable name because the program later
refers to the "sWork" variable.

Is it possible that the brackets have some other purpose when they bracket a
datatype?

[Brian Gideon]

Herman,

No, the bracket does not have alternate meaning when used with data
types. Brackets allow you to create escaped or verbatim identifiers.
This is useful when you need to refer to an identifier that is also a
keyword. The most common scenario is the interaction between different
programming languages. For example, a C# programmer may think Alias
would be a good choice for a property name not knowing that it is a
keyword in VB. A VB programmer would need to use brackets when
referring to that property.

Brian

Herman Jones wrote:

This example seems to be a little different. In your example you're using
[Dim] as a variable name. It comes before the "As" keyword.

The sample code I found has [String] after the "As" keyword. I don't thing
that "String" is being used as the variable name because the program later
refers to the "sWork" variable.

Is it possible that the brackets have some other purpose when they bracket a
datatype?

[_AnonCoward]

"Herman Jones" <He*********@di scussions.micro soft.comwrote in
message news:6F******** *************** ***********@mic rosoft.com...
:
: I found this statement in some sample code. It seems to be
: syntactically correct. What do the brackets around "String"
: mean?
:
: Dim sWork As [String] = "Some number of characters"
I don't see the point of using the brackets in this context. I checked
out the complete code you included in the other post and it compiles
just fine with or without the brackets. Just out of curiousity, I
compared both versions of the code in the ildasm utility and the vb
compiler emitted the exact same code. In this instance, the brackets
are meaningless. That said, brackets are quite useful. Indeed, they
are often necessary.

Let's say you have access to an email message class written in C#
which exposes the following Properties:

From
To
Subject
Body
If you were to declare an instance of this class in vb, you'd have a
problem because "To" is a vb keyword. The following would fail:

With New CSharpEmailMess ageType
.From = "[e-mail] m"
.To = "Yo*@YourDomain .com"
.Subject = "Hello"
.Body = "World"
End With

This would not compile. To get around this, you would need to do the
following:

With New CSharpEmailMess ageType
.From = "[e-mail] m"
.[To] = "Yo*@YourDomain .com"
.Subject = "Hello"
.Body = "World"
End With

Now the code would compile just fine. Brackets tell the compiler to
treat what would otherwise be a reserved keyword as any other code
element.

Another use I've personally found for the brackets is when I'm
generating throw away code. I don't post to this forum often, but
occasionally I will offer a code example to a question. In those
cases, I may post a complete example that will compile and run. For
example, I might do something like this:

=============== =============== =========
Option Strict

Imports Microsoft.Visua lBasic
Imports System

Public Module [module]
Public Sub Main
Dim c As New [class]
Console.WriteLi ne(c.GetMessage )
End Sub
End Module

Public Class [class]
Public Function GetMessage() As String
Return "Hello World" & vbCrLf
End Function
End Class
=============== =============== =========
I defined a module and a class but really didn't want to waste time
trying to figure out a clever or relevant name for them, so I just
named them '[module]' and '[class]' and moved on from there.
Ralf
--
--
----------------------------------------------------------
* ^~^ ^~^ *
* _ {~ ~} {~ ~} _ *
* /_``>*< >*<''_\ *
* (\--_)++) (++(_--/) *
----------------------------------------------------------
There are no advanced students in Aikido - there are only
competent beginners. There are no advanced techniques -
only the correct application of basic principles.

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

_Anon,

Nobody discuss that they can be handy. I do not believe that there is a
serious person who would give String another name even not somebody from who
is selling underwear.

Cor

"_AnonCowar d" <ab****@uvwxyz. comschreef in bericht
news:yh******** ********@tornad o.southeast.rr. com...

>
"Herman Jones" <He*********@di scussions.micro soft.comwrote in
message news:6F******** *************** ***********@mic rosoft.com...
:
: I found this statement in some sample code. It seems to be
: syntactically correct. What do the brackets around "String"
: mean?
:
: Dim sWork As [String] = "Some number of characters"
I don't see the point of using the brackets in this context. I checked
out the complete code you included in the other post and it compiles
just fine with or without the brackets. Just out of curiousity, I
compared both versions of the code in the ildasm utility and the vb
compiler emitted the exact same code. In this instance, the brackets
are meaningless. That said, brackets are quite useful. Indeed, they
are often necessary.

Let's say you have access to an email message class written in C#
which exposes the following Properties:

From
To
Subject
Body
If you were to declare an instance of this class in vb, you'd have a
problem because "To" is a vb keyword. The following would fail:

With New CSharpEmailMess ageType
.From = "[e-mail] m"
.To = "Yo*@YourDomain .com"
.Subject = "Hello"
.Body = "World"
End With

This would not compile. To get around this, you would need to do the
following:

With New CSharpEmailMess ageType
.From = "[e-mail] m"
.[To] = "Yo*@YourDomain .com"
.Subject = "Hello"
.Body = "World"
End With

Now the code would compile just fine. Brackets tell the compiler to
treat what would otherwise be a reserved keyword as any other code
element.

Another use I've personally found for the brackets is when I'm
generating throw away code. I don't post to this forum often, but
occasionally I will offer a code example to a question. In those
cases, I may post a complete example that will compile and run. For
example, I might do something like this:

=============== =============== =========
Option Strict

Imports Microsoft.Visua lBasic
Imports System

Public Module [module]
Public Sub Main
Dim c As New [class]
Console.WriteLi ne(c.GetMessage )
End Sub
End Module

Public Class [class]
Public Function GetMessage() As String
Return "Hello World" & vbCrLf
End Function
End Class
=============== =============== =========
I defined a module and a class but really didn't want to waste time
trying to figure out a clever or relevant name for them, so I just
named them '[module]' and '[class]' and moved on from there.
Ralf
--
--
----------------------------------------------------------
* ^~^ ^~^ *
* _ {~ ~} {~ ~} _ *
* /_``>*< >*<''_\ *
* (\--_)++) (++(_--/) *
----------------------------------------------------------
There are no advanced students in Aikido - there are only
competent beginners. There are no advanced techniques -
only the correct application of basic principles.