Chapter 4

Decisions and Conditions

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Objectives (1 of 2)

Use If statements to control the flow of logic. Understand and use nested If statements. Read and create action diagrams that illustrate the logic in a selection process. Evaluate conditions using the comparison operators. Combine conditions using And, Or, AndAlso, and OrElse. Test the Checked property of radio buttons and check boxes. Perform validation on numeric fields.
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Objectives (2 of 2)

Use a Case structure for multiple decisions. Use one event procedure to respond to the events for multiple controls and determine which control caused the event. Call an event procedure from another procedure. Create message boxes with multiple buttons and choose alternate actions based on the user response. Debug projects using breakpoints, stepping program execution, and displaying intermediate results.

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If Statements

Used to make decisions If true, only the Then clause is executed, if false, only Else clause, if present, is executed Block IfThenElse must always conclude with End If. Then must be on same line as If or ElseIf. End If and Else must appear alone on a line. Note: ElseIf is 1 word, End If is 2 words.

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IfThenElse General Form

If (condition) Then statement(s) [ElseIf (condition) Then statement(s)] [Else statement(s)] End If

Logic of an If /Then/ Else statement

Logic of an If statement without the Else
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IfThenElse Example
unitsDecimal = Decimal.Parse(unitsTextBox.Text) If unitsDecimal < 32D Then freshmanRadioButton.Checked = True Else freshmanRadioButton.Checked = False End IF

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Charting If Statements

A Uniform Modeling Language (UML) activity diagram is a useful tool for showing the logic of an IF statement. Can be used to help programmers organize their thoughts and design projects more quickly UML includes several types of diagrams.

Activity diagram-visual planning tool for decisions/actions for

either the entire application or single procedure

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Conditions

Test in an If statement is based on a condition. Six relational operators are used for comparison. Negative numbers are less than positive numbers. An equal sign is used to test for equality. Strings can be compared. Enclose strings in quotes. JOAN is less than JOHN HOPE is less than HOPELESS Numbers are always less than letters. 300ZX is less than Porsche

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The Helpful Editor

When entering IF statements, the editor automatically adds the Then and End If. The editor attempts to correct errors by supplying a colon if multiple statements are entered on a line. The colon is a statement terminator. Good programming practices dictate that there should be only one statement per line so remove the extra colon if found, and correct the syntax.
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The Six Relational Operators

The test in an IF statement if based on a condition. To form conditions, comparison operators are used.
> < = <> >= <=

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Comparing Strings

Comparison begins with the left-most character and proceeds one character at a time, left to right. If a character in one string is not equal to the corresponding character in the 2nd string, the comparison terminates. The string with the lower-ranking character is judged less than the other.
(collating sequence) for all letters, numbers, and special characters.

Ranking is based on ANSI code, an established order

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Comparing Upper and Lowercase Characters

Use ToUpper and ToLower methods of the String class to return the uppercase or lowercase equivalent of a string, respectively.

If nameTextBox.Text.ToUpper( ) = BASIC" Then ' Do something. End If When converting name TextBox.Text to uppercase, it must be compared to an uppercase literal (BASIC) if it is to evaluate as True.
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Compound Condition
If maleRadioButton.Checked And _ Integer.Parse(ageTextBox.Text) < 21 Then minorMaleCountInteger += 1 End If If juniorRadioButton.Checked Or seniorRadioButton.Checked Then upperClassmanInteger += 1 End If

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Combining Logical Operators

Compound conditions can combine multiple logical conditions. When both And and Or are evaluated, And is evaluated before the Or. Use parenthesis to change the order of evaluation condition inside the parenthesis is evaluated first.
If saleDecimal > 1000.0D Or discountRadioButton.Checked _ And stateTextBox.Text.ToUpper( ) <> "CA" Then ' Code here to calculate the discount. End If

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Short-Circuit Operations

Visual Basic has 2 operators that provide shortcircuit evaluation for compound conditions: the AndAlso and OrElse. VB evaluates both expressions for True or False, then evaluates the And. The OrElse is designed to short circuit when the first condition evaluates True. AndAlso and OrElse are used for advanced programming when the 2nd expression should not be executed for some reason.
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Nested If Statements
If tempInteger > 32 Then If tempInteger > 80 Then commentLabel.Text = "Hot" Else commentLabel.Text = "Moderate" End If Else commentLabel.Text = "Freezing" End If

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Using If Statements with Radio Buttons & Check Boxes

Instead of coding the CheckedChanged events, use If statements to see which are selected. Place your code in the Click event of Buttons, such as an OK or Apply button; VS checks to see which options are selected.

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Enhancing Message Boxes

For longer, more complex messages, store the message text in a String variable and use that variable as an argument of the Show method. VB will wrap longer messages to a second line. Include ControlChars to control the line length and position of the line break in multiple lines of output. Combine multiple NewLine constants to achieve double spacing and create multiple message lines.

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Message String Example

Dim formattedTotalString As String Dim formattedAvgString As String Dim messageString As String formattedTotalString = totalSalesDecimal.ToString("N") formattedAvgString = averageSaleDecimal.ToString("N") messageString = "Total Sales: " & formattedTotalString _ & Environment.NewLine & "Average Sale: " & _ formattedAvgString MessageBox.Show(messageString, "Sales Summary", _ MessageBoxButtons.OK)
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Message Box Multiple Lines of Output

ControlChars.NewLine Used to force to next line

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ControlChars Constants
ControlChar Constant CfLf Cr Lf Description Carriage return/linefeed character combination Carriage return Line feed

NewLine
NullChar Tab Back

New line character. Same effect as a carriage return/linefeed character combination

Character with a value of zero Tab character Backspace character

FormFeed
VerticalTab Quote
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Formfeed character (not useful in Microsoft Windows)

Vertical tab character (not useful in Microsoft Windows Quotation mark character
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Displaying Multiple Buttons

Use MessageBoxButtons constants to display more than one button in the Message Box. Message Box's Show method returns a DialogResult object that can be checked to see which button the user clicked. Declare a variable to hold an instance of the DialogResult type to capture the outcome of the Show method.

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Message Box - Multiple Buttons

MessageBoxButtons.YesNo

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Declaring an Object Variable for the Method Return

Dim whichButtonDialogResult As DialogResult
whichButtonDialogResult = MessageBox.Show _ ("Clear the current order figures?", "Clear Order", _ MessageBoxButtons.YesNo, MessageBoxIcon.Question) If whichButtonDialogResult = DialogResult.Yes Then ' Code to clear the order. End If

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Specifying a Default Button and Options

Use a different signature for the Message Box Show method to specify a default button. Add the MessageBoxDefaultButton argument after the MessageBoxIcons argument. Set message alignment with MessageBoxOptions argument.

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Input Validation

Check to see if valid values were entered by user before beginning calculationscalled validation. Check for a range of values (reasonableness).

If Integer.Parse(HoursTextBox.Text) <= 10 Then If NameTextBox.Text <> "" Then ...

Code to perform calculations. Check for a required field (not blank).

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Performing Multiple Validations

Use nested If statement to validate multiple values on a form. --OR-Use Case structure to validate multiple values. Simpler and clearer than nested If No limit to number of statements that follow a Case statement When using a relational operator you must use the word Is. Use the word To to indicate a range of constants.

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Sharing an Event Procedure

Add events to the Handles clause at the top of an event procedure.

Allows the procedure to respond to events of other

controls

Good professional technique is to set up a modulelevel variable to hold the selection a user makes. Key to using a shared event procedure is the sender argument.

Cast (convert) sender to a specific object type using

the CType function.
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Calling Event Procedures

Reusable code General Form

Examples
OR

[Call] ProcedureName ( ) Keyword Call is optional and rarely used. Call clearButton_Click (sender, e)

ClearButton_Click (sender, e)
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Calling Event Procedures Example

A form with buttons that perform overlapping functions The New Order button must do the same tasks as Clear for Next Item.
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Debugging Tools

Use Debug Menu and Debug options on VB Standard toolbar. Place Debug.WriteLine method in code. Set BreakPoints to stop at a particular location in code and watch what happens. Step Into, Step Over, Step Out Edit and Continue Locals Window, and Autos Window
expressions, and conditions.

View the values of properties, variables, mathematical

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Debug Menu and Toolbar

The debugging buttons on the VB standard toolbar

The debugging options on the Debug menu showing the keyboard shortcut keys
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Writing to the Immediate Window

Debug.WriteLine(TextString) Debug.WriteLine(Object) Debug.WriteLine("calculateButton procedure entered") Debug.WriteLine(quantityTextBox)

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Breakpoints

Toggle Breakpoints On/Off by clicking in Editor's gray left margin indicator.

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Edit and Continue

When attempting to continue execution after making changes in Debugging mode, this dialog box appears if the edits are too majorClick Restart to recompile and run again.
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The Locals Window

Shows values of local variables that are within scope of current statement
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Autos Window

Automatically adjusts to show variables and properties that appear in previous and next few lines
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