• Article

Information.VarType Method

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

Returns an Integer value containing the data type classification of a variable.

Namespace:  Microsoft.VisualBasic
Assembly:  Microsoft.VisualBasic (in Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
Public Shared Function VarType ( _
    VarName As Object _
) As VariantType

public static VariantType VarType(
    Object VarName
)

Parameters

  • VarName
    Type: System.Object
    Required. Object variable. If Option Strict is Off, you can pass a variable of any data type except a structure.

Return Value

Type: Microsoft.VisualBasic.VariantType
Returns an Integer value containing the data type classification of a variable.

Remarks

The integer value returned by VarType is a member of the VariantType enumeration.

The following table shows the values returned by VarType for special cases of VarName.

Data type represented by VarName

Value returned by VarType

Nothing

VariantType.Object

DBNull

VariantType.Null

Enumeration

Underlying data type (SByte, Byte, Short, UShort, Integer, UInteger, Long, or ULong)

Array

Bitwise OR of array element type and VariantType.Array

Array of arrays

Bitwise OR of VariantType.Object and VariantType.Array

Structure (System.ValueType)

VariantType.UserDefinedType

Exception

VariantType.Error

Unknown

VariantType.Object

Examples

The following example uses the VarType function to return data type classification information about several variables.

Dim testString As String = "String for testing"
Dim testObject As New Object
Dim testNumber, testArray(5) As Integer
Dim testVarType As VariantType
testVarType = VarType(testVarType)
' Returns VariantType.Integer.
testVarType = VarType(testString)
' Returns VariantType.String.
testVarType = VarType(testObject)
' Returns VariantType.Object.
testVarType = VarType(testNumber)
' Returns VariantType.Integer.
testVarType = VarType(testArray)
' Returns the bitwise OR of VariantType.Array and VariantType.Integer.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.