Comparing Strings in VBA

Question

I have a basic programming background and have been self sufficient for many years but this problem I can't seem to solve. I have a program in VBA and I need to compare two strings. I have tried using the following methods to compare my strings below but to no avail:

//Assume Cells(1, 1).Value = "Cat"

Dim A As String, B As String

A="Cat"

B=Cell(1, 1).Value

If A=B Then...

If A Like B Then...

If StrCmp(A=B, 1)=0 Then...

I've even tried inputting the Strings straight into the code to see if it would work:

If "Cat" = "Cat" Then...

If "Cat" Like "Cat" Then...

If StrCmp("Cat" = "Cat", 1) Then...

VBA for some reason does not recognize these strings as equals. When going through Debugger it shows that StrComp returns 1. Do my strings have different Char lengths? Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Posting as answer because it doesn't fit in the comments:

I find it hard to believe that something like:

MsgBox "Cat" = "Cat"

Would not display True on your machine. Please verify.

However, I do observe that you are most certainly using StrComp function incorrectly.

The proper use is StrComp(string, anotherstring, [comparison type optional])

When you do StrComp(A=B, 1) you are essentially asking it to compare whether a boolean (A=B will either evaluate to True or False) is equivalent to the integer 1. It is not, nor will it ever be.

When I run the following code, all four message boxes confirm that each statement evaluates to True.

Sub CompareStrings()
Dim A As String, B As String
A = "Cat"
B = Cells(1, 1).Value


MsgBox A = B

MsgBox A Like B

MsgBox StrComp(A, B) = 0 

MsgBox "Cat" = "Cat" 


End Sub

Update from comments

I don't see anything odd happening if I use an array, just FYI. Example data used in the array:

Modified routine to use an array:

Sub CompareStrings()
Dim A As String, B() As Variant

A = "Cat"
B = Application.Transpose(Range("A1:A8").Value)

For i = 1 To 8

    MsgBox A = B(i)

    MsgBox A Like B(i)

    MsgBox StrComp(A, B(i)) = 0

    MsgBox "Cat" = B(i)

Next

End Sub

What I would check is how you're instantiating the array. Range arrays (as per my example) are base 1. If it assigned some other way, it is most likely base 0, so check to make sure that you're comparing the correct array index.