Question

If I am retrieving a value from a database which could be Null, will adding a "" to the value avoid the problem of the value potentially being Null?

Dim strFinal as String
strFinal = rsCustomers("Suburb") & ""

If rsCustomers("Suburb") happens to be Null, will the adding of "" to it cause the result to be a string?

I am looking at someone else’s code and I am just trying to understand why there is the continual use of this pattern.

Answer 1

I have found exactly your question here Two handy functions for Null handling in “Tip of the Day”

You’re probably aware that most VB functions don’t work well with Null
values, which is an issue when you’re working with database columns
that can accept Nulls. For example, the following statement:

Dim s as String
s = rs.Fields("AnyField")

can raise error 94 “Invalid use of Null”. The usual workaround is to
force the conversion to string by appending an empty string, as in:

s = rs.Fields("AnyField") & ""

However, this solution slightly affect code readability, especially
if other people in your team aren’t aware of the trick