Question

This has no value as far as I’m concerned. I discovered this while researching a question.

In VBA:

Given the following: Dim a As Boolean, b As Boolean, c As Boolean

The code a = b = c = 1 = 1
Assigns a to False.

But a = b = c = true assigns a to true.

Can anyone explain why this is so? Obviously 1 = 1 evaluates to true.

As a side note, a = 1 = 1 will assign a to true as well. Also the behavior is the same using variants instead of Boolean values.

Again I know this has no practical purpose, I’m just curious if anyone can explain the behavior.

Answer 1

The expression is evaluated left to right because all the operators are of equal precedence.

a = b = c = 1 = 1

b = c returns True.

True = 1 returns False because True converts to -1 prior to comparison.

False = 1 returns False

a = b = c = true 

b = c returns True

True = true returns True.