By Gary Van Sluis

When dealing with COM or unfamiliar database schemas or regular code, sometimes you will find yourselves wondering whether to test if a variable is Null by using either:

• IsEmpty(varname)
  
• IsNull(varName)
  
• If varname = 0
  
• If varname <> 0, or
  
• If varname > 0

This little quick trick will eliminate all of those issues and allow you to quickly move on to more pressing issues. Simply convert the variable to a string and check the length. Here is a quick sample.

If Len(varname & "") < 1

or you can use:

If Len(varname & "") = 0

or you can also do:

If Len(varname & "") <> 0

Either way, if its equal to 0 then it was empty or null but you elimate type mismatch errors that can cause delays in development.

Happy Programming!

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