Question

I am passing the textbox1.text values into a query and sometimes into a string:

Dim combor1 As String
combor1 = comboReason1.Text

How do I know when I should put combor1 = comboReason1.Value?

Also, why do I need to set focus for a control to reference its property? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Also, when I set combor4 = comboReason4.Value and the .value is null, then I get an error about invalid use of null.

Answer 1

• “.text” gives you what is displayed
  on the screen
• “.value” gives you the underlying
  value

Both usually give the same result, except when the corresponding control is

1. a combobox or listbox control
2. the displayed value differs from the bound column

Example:

• id_Person is a combobox control in a form
• the rowsource is “SELECT id_Person, personName FROM Tbl_Person”
• column widths are “0cm;3cm”
• bound column is 1

In this situation:

• id_Person.text displays Tbl_Person.personName
• id_Person.value displays Tbl_Person.id_Person.

.text property is available only when the corresponding control has the focus.

.text is a string value, therefore it cannot be Null, while .value can be Null

EDIT: .text can only be called when the control has the focus, while .value can be called any time …