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\ Operator (Visual Basic)

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Divides two numbers and returns an integer result.

Syntax

expression1 \ expression2

Parts

expression1
Required. Any numeric expression.

expression2
Required. Any numeric expression.

Supported Types

All numeric types, including the unsigned and floating-point types and Decimal.

Result

The result is the integer quotient of expression1 divided by expression2, which discards any remainder and retains only the integer portion. This is known as truncation.

The result data type is a numeric type appropriate for the data types of expression1 and expression2. See the "Integer Arithmetic" tables in Data Types of Operator Results.

The / Operator (Visual Basic) returns the full quotient, which retains the remainder in the fractional portion.

Remarks

Before performing the division, Visual Basic attempts to convert any floating-point numeric expression to Long. If Option Strict is On, a compiler error occurs. If Option Strict is Off, an OverflowException is possible if the value is outside the range of the Long Data Type. The conversion to Long is also subject to banker's rounding. For more information, see "Fractional Parts" in Type Conversion Functions.

If expression1 or expression2 evaluates to Nothing, it is treated as zero.

Attempted Division by Zero

If expression2 evaluates to zero, the \ operator throws a DivideByZeroException exception. This is true for all numeric data types of the operands.

Note

The \ operator can be overloaded, which means that a class or structure can redefine its behavior when an operand has the type of that class or structure. If your code uses this operator on such a class or structure, be sure you understand its redefined behavior. For more information, see Operator Procedures.

Example

The following example uses the \ operator to perform integer division. The result is an integer that represents the integer quotient of the two operands, with the remainder discarded.

Dim resultValue As Integer
resultValue = 11 \ 4
resultValue = 9 \ 3
resultValue = 100 \ 3
resultValue = 67 \ -3

The expressions in the preceding example return values of 2, 3, 33, and -22, respectively.

See also