There's also live online events, interactive content, certification prep materials, and more. When Option Compare isn't used in a module, the default comparison method is binary. When Option Compare is used, it must appear at the start of the module's declarations section, before any procedures. Binary comparison —the default text comparison method in Visual Basic—uses the internal binary code of each character to determine the sort order of the characters. Text comparison uses the locale settings of the current system to determine the sort order of the characters.

Text comparison is case insensitive. Dictionary object Scripting. FileSystemObject Searching within strings for the presence of substrings Sorting String Literals - Escaping, non-printable characters and line-continuations Substrings User Forms VBA Option Keyword Option Base {0 1} Option Compare {Binary Text Database} Option Explicit VBA Run-Time Errors Working with ADO Working With Files and Directories Without Using FileSystemObject.

VBA Getting started with VBA Awesome Book Awesome Community Awesome Course Awesome Tutorial Awesome YouTube API Calls Arrays Assigning strings with repeated characters Attributes Automation or Using other applications Libraries Collections Comments Concatenating strings Conditional Compilation Converting other types to strings Copying, returning and passing arrays CreateObject vs.

VBA VBA Option Keyword Option Compare {Binary Text Database}. PDF - Download VBA for free. Previous Next.

Find centralized, trusted content and collaborate around the technologies you use most. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. What are the pros and cons of standardizing on using Option Compare Text vs Option Compare Binary for VB. NET development? Just some background since it seems like it would help - my development team has found it much easier to standardize on Option Strict On , Option Infer On , and Option Explicit due to their obvious advantages over the alternatives.

Some of the arguments for each side have been as follows:. Perhaps it would help if I defined what I'd consider an answer to this. If you can point to any authoritative external resource that talks through these issues more thoroughly, or point to a standards and best practices discussion or book that gives guidance on this topic, that would certainly count.

With Option Compare Text you don't need to worry about case when comparing strings. That can be a big benefit, and avoid converting everything to lower or upper case to comapre for string equality. The other place where this plays a part is sorting of strings. Option Compare Text will sort like the file list in Windows, but Option Compare Binary will sort like a Unix file list all the upper case file names appear before the lower-case file names. After reading the comments and the other answer, and thinking a bit more, I'd say Option Compare Binary is the way to go from point of view of consistency with the rest of the.

Net Framework. If dictionary keys etc. are case-sensitive regardless of the Option Compare setting then using binary comparisons by default throughout your code is just being consistent. All you then need to worry about is if, for a particular comparison, you need it to be case-insensitive and code for that. If you go with Option Compare Text then not only do you need to worry about whether or not you need a particular comparison to be case- in sensitive you also need to be aware of the default behaviour in the current context.

It then becomes an argument not of consitency with other languages, but of consistency with the framework you're developing to. Use binary, as that's what most other languages default to, and that's what.

NET classes default to. If you really need text which isn't often , then just use String. Compare or String. If you need to perform a lot of case-insensitive comparisons, write a module with some concisely-named helper methods and include it in your project. While CaseInsenstiveEquals S1, S2 or using extension methods S1. Use of the equals operator to report as equal strings that contain different sequences of characters will increase the verbosity of the case-sensitive comparisons.

Further, there are many ways of performing case-insensitive comparisons. If one uses a helper method, the code of that method will reveal precisely what method it uses. By contrast, if one uses Option Compare Text , it will be much harder to know how all the various corner cases are going to be handled. The solution is not to use text for keys. When required then ensure case is consistent in db. Finally when this is not possible, simply use tolower as needed. I would not reccomend using tolower except as needed as this really does ugly up the code.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Start collaborating and sharing organizational knowledge. Create a free Team Why Teams? Learn more about Collectives. Learn more about Teams. NET Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 6 months ago.

Modified 9 years, 7 months ago. Viewed 8k times. ToLower calls and StringComparison. OrdinalIgnoreCase all over the place Data needs are rarely concerned with casing, as evidenced by most databases being case-insensitive. Rarely would you ever really want to distinguish between THIS and This and this when doing a data comparison. Certain specific use cases are simpler when you don't have to worry about casing. For example, handling ASP.

NET control events where commands are sent to the codebehind as strings and casing-issues are difficult to track down as the compiler cannot help you. Many of the concerns raised about text comparison concern internationalization, which is often not that relevant to a lot of applications.

VB specifically is case insensitive as a language, though Visual Studio helps you by at least enforcing consistency in your casing. SQL is case insensitive as well. Strings are the only place where you have to remember to worry about it, which highlights the awkwardness in ways you wouldn't normally notice it if you were worried about it everywhere.

It's somewhat unexpected to have alternate behavior and the unexpected is not good in programming. There is a slight performance penalty with Option Compare Text as evidenced by the IL generated on compile. Option Compare Binary doesn't have that penalty.

Option Compare Text only makes certain parts of string handling case insensitive. But, it doesn't make it so that things like dictionary indexing are case insensitive by default. So, it's not like Option Compare Text actually makes it so that you don't have to worry about casing at all.

If it only works half way, why bother? Programming is hard. It's best not to attempt to smooth over that fact. Worrying about string casing is part of the deal. Humans recognize THIS is different from This and tHiS.

Of course your code should too - after all, they aren't really the exact same string. So I'm really just wondering if there are any other considerations. Improve this question. edited Jun 22, at asked Jun 22, at mattmc3 mattmc3 Add a comment.

Sorted by: Reset to default. Highest score default Trending recent votes count more Date modified newest first Date created oldest first. Update After reading the comments and the other answer, and thinking a bit more, I'd say Option Compare Binary is the way to go from point of view of consistency with the rest of the. Improve this answer. answered Jun 22, at Andrew Cooper Andrew Cooper But one of the difficulties with Option Compare Text comes in when you assume casing doesn't matter, because there are a lot of places where it sill will.

For example dictionaries and collections won't be case insensitive by default. Net framework. Also worth noting that the Microsoft Press book Practical Guidelines and Best Practices for Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C Developers advises using Option Compare Binary although irritatingly it doesn't explain why — MarkJ. MarkJ -But is it consistency for the sake of consistency, or is there a purpose? Optional method parameters weren't available from C for a long time. Then, C got them and all was well again.

Playing devil's advocate here, why miss out on a useful feature that plays nice with other languages just because it isn't 'consistent' with the way they do things?

mattmc3 It's consistency to avoid confusion with dictionary keys etc. Like you explained in your edit to the question? Consistency with the framework, not with C. Messing up a single word shouldn't break your whole file. user user k gold badges silver badges bronze badges. That's what I've argued coming from a C background, but I've steadily been worn down by the other devs on my team with seemingly good arguments.

I think I'm interested in a more in-depth discussion than just defaulting to "do what every other language does". mattmc3: What are their arguments? Posting them in your question might be helpful. answered May 14, at supercat supercat 75k 9 9 gold badges silver badges bronze badges.

SQL is not case sensitive but queries in LINQ are. It is source of some insideous bugs. edited Oct 27, at Andreas Louv answered Apr 26, at

Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. The solution is not to use text for keys. I would not reccomend using tolower except as needed as this really does ugly up the code. I think I'm interested in a more in-depth discussion than just defaulting to "do what every other language does". Just some background since it seems like it would help - my development team has found it much easier to standardize on Option Strict On , Option Infer On , and Option Explicit due to their obvious advantages over the alternatives.

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