Question

I am sure this is a simple question for you guys but I don’t know what this developer is doing.

name = String.Format(MyStringBuilder + "");

If I convert this to VB I get the message “operator + is not defined for types system.text.stringbuilder and string”. Same thing if I use &.

Answer 1

In the strictest sense, MyStringBuilder in the original code could be a null instance, at which point making an explicit call to .ToString() would throw an exception. The code sample provided would execute properly, however. In VB, you may want to say

Dim name As String
If MyStringBuilder Is Nothing Then
   name = String.Empty
Else
   name = MyStringBuilder.ToString()
End If