Visual Basic 2010 Lesson 15 – The Format Function

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The Format function in Visual Basic 2010 displays the numeric values in different forms. There are two types of Format functions in Visual Basic 2010, one of them is the built-in format function while another one is defined by the users.

(i) The syntax of a built-in Format function is as follows :

Format (n, "style argument")

* n is a number. The list of style arguments is given in Table 15.1.




Table 15.1 List of style arguments

Style argument Explanation Example
General Number To display the number without having separators between thousands. Format(8972.234, “General Number”)=8972.234
Fixed To display the number without having separators between thousands and rounds it up to two decimal places. Format(8972.2, “Fixed”)=8972.23
Standard To display the number with separators or separators between thousands and rounds it up to two decimal places. Format(6648972.265, “Standard”)= 6,648,972.27
Currency To display the number with the dollar sign in front has separators between thousands as well as rounding it up to two decimal places. Format(6648972.265, “Currency”)= $6,648,972.27
Percent Converts the number to the percentage form and displays a % sign and rounds it up to two decimal places. Format(0.56324, “Percent”)=56.32 %

Example 15.1

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click, Button5.Click, Button4.Click, Button3.Click
 Label1.Text = Format(8972.234, "General Number")
 Label2.Text = Format(8972.2, "Fixed")
 Label3.Text = Format(6648972.265, "Standard")
 Label4.Text = Format(6648972.265, "Currency")
 Label5.Text = Format(0.56324, "Percent")
End Sub

The Output is shown in Figure 15.1.
Visual Basic 2010

Figure 15.1




(ii) The syntax of the user-defined Format function is

Format (n, "user's format")

Although it is known as user-defined format, we still need to follow certain formatting styles. Examples of user-defined formatting style are listed in Table 15.2

Visual Basic 2010

Example 15.2

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click, Button5.Click, Button4.Click, Button3.Click
 Label1.Text = Format(8972.234, "0.0")
 Label2.Text = Format(8972.2345, "0.00")
 Label3.Text = Format(6648972.265, "#,##0.00")
 Label4.Text = Format(6648972.265, "$#,##0.00")
 Label5.Text = Format(0.56324, "0%")
End Sub

The Output window is shown in Figure 15.2.

Visual Basic 2010

Figure 15.2



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