Glossary
argument
A constant, variable, or expression passed to a function.
ASCII Character Set
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) 7-bit character set widely used to represent letters and symbols found on a standard U.S. keyboard. The ASCII character set is the same as the first 128 characters (0–127) in the ANSI character set.
bit-wise comparison
A bit-by-bit comparison of identically positioned bits in two numeric expressions.
Boolean expression
An expression that evaluates to either True or False.
character code
A number that represents a particular character in a set, such as the ASCII character set.
comment
Text added to code by a programmer that explains how the code works. In Visual Basic Script, a comment line generally starts with an apostrophe ('), or you can use the keyword Rem followed by a space.
comparison operator
A character or symbol indicating a relationship between two or more values or expressions:| Symbol | Description |
| < | Less than |
| <= | Less than or equal to |
| > | Greater than |
| >= | Greater than or equal to |
| <> | Not equal |
| = | Equal |
Is is also a comparison operator, but it is used exclusively for determining if one object reference is the same as another.
constant
A named item that retains a constant value throughout the execution of a program, as opposed to a variable, whose value can change during execution. Constants can be used anywhere in your code in place of actual values. A constant may be a string or numeric literal, another constant, or any combination that includes arithmetic or logical operators except Is and exponentiation. For example:
Const A = "MyString"
expression
A combination of keywords, operators, variables, and constants that yield a string, number, or object. An expression can perform a calculation, manipulate characters, or test data.
locale
The set of information that corresponds to a given language and country. A locale affects the language of predefined programming terms and locale-specific settings. There are two contexts where locale information is important:
- The code locale affects the language of terms such as keywords and defines locale-specific settings such as the decimal and list separators, date formats, and character sorting order.
- The system locale affects the way locale-aware functionality behaves, for example, when you display numbers or convert strings to dates. You set the system locale using the Control Panel utilities provided by the operating system.
Null
A value indicating that a variable contains no valid data. Null is the result of:
- An explicit assignment of Null to a variable.
- Any operation between expressions that contain Null.
numeric expression
Any expression that can be evaluated as a number. Elements of the expression can include any combination of keywords, variables, constants, and operators that result in a number.
property
A named attribute of an object. Properties define object characteristics such as size, color, and screen location, or the state of an object, such as enabled or disabled.
run-time error
An error that occurs when code is running. A run-time error results when a statement attempts an invalid operation.
run time
The time when code is running. During run time, you interact with the code as a user would.
scope
Defines the visibility of a variable, procedure, or object. For example, a variable declared as Public is visible to all procedures in all modules in a directly referencing project. Variables declared in procedures are visible only within the procedure and lose their value between calls.
string comparison
A comparison of two sequences of characters. Unless specified in the function making the comparison, all string comparisons are binary. In English, binary comparisons are case-sensitive; text comparisons are not.
string expression
Any expression that evaluates to a sequence of continuguous characters. Elements of a string expression can include a function that returns a string, a string literal, a string constant, or a string variable.