StrComp Function

StrComp function compares two Strings and returns the Boolean values.

Syntax: StrComp(String1,String2,[Compare])

String1 (Required) – String expression

String2 (Required) – String expression

Compare (Optional) – Specifies the type of comparison to be performed. It takes the below two values –

          0 (VbBinaryCompare) – Performs Binary comparison

          1 (VbTextCompare) – Performs Text comparison

If not specified, it performs Binary comparison by default.

Return Values:

StrComp function returns the following values –

-1       -        If String1 < String2

 0       -        If String1 = String2

 1       -        If String1 > String2

Examples:

MsgBox StrComp("QTP","QTP Sreenu")        'Output is "-1" (String1 < String2)

MsgBox StrComp("QTP Sreenu","QTP Sreenu") 'Output is "0" (String1 = String2)

MsgBox StrComp("QTP Sreenu","QTP")        'Output is "1" (String1 > String2)

MsgBox StrComp("QTP Sreenu","Sreenu")     'Output is "-1" (String1 < String2)

MsgBox StrComp("QTP","qtp",0)             'Output is "-1" (Binary Comparison)

MsgBox StrComp("QTP","qtp",1)             'Output is "-1" (Text Comparison)

There might be some confusion on how greater than and less than operations work for Strings. Even I was having the same confusion and did some analysis. Here are the outcomes of my analysis –

Let us start the analysis with few examples -

MsgBox StrComp("AB","BA")                 'Output is "-1"

MsgBox StrComp("AB","AC")                 'Output is "-1"

MsgBox StrComp("ABC","AB")                'Output is "1"

MsgBox StrComp("QTP","AQTP")              'Output is "1"

From the above examples, we can clearly notice that the comparison starts from the first character of both Strings and executes character by character until any mismatch is found.

The comparison works with the below principle -

If the first characters of both Strings are not same – then ASCII values of both characters would be compared and the result would be displayed. The Comparison ends there itself, and does not bother about the remaining characters of the String, how big is the String though.

Msgbox StrComp("B","ABCDEFGHIJKLM") 'Output is "1" (B>A)

If the first characters of both Strings are same - then the comparison starts from second character and so on until it finds any mismatch. If all characters are same then the comparison result is 0.

Msgbox StrComp("ABCDEFGHIJKLM","ABD") 'Output is "-1" (C<D)