If statement being bypassed?

[George-Bowyer]

I have a form that allows the user to appoint members to various positions in a club.

If the position is of a certain type, then I want the code to do certain things.

For some reason, the code is running regardless of the position

This is the relevant nugget from the beginning of a very long If clause.

        If intPosition = 5 Or 55 Then 
        
            MsgBox intPosition
            Exit Sub

It seems to me that the msgbox should only come up if intPosition is 5 or 55.

but it's popping up regardless of the number.

How?

I am confused. This seems really basic level stuff that doesn't seem to be working

 

[arnelgp]

If intPosition = 5 Or intPosition = 55 Then

 

[George-Bowyer]

Doh! Ok, thanks, that makes sense.

Should probably be using a select case anyway.

So what I effectively wrote was:

If 55 then...

Question is why does that trigger the if clause? What is the code deciding equals 55 to meet the criteria?

 

[Minty]

Stealing something from another thread. In the immediate window type

? IIf(55,"yes", "no")

and hit return.
You are effectively saying is " Is 55 ?" which of course is yes, it's 55?

 

[arnelgp]

it's because you are Checking a Constant:

If 55 then..

is checking if number 55 is 55, which is True.

so:

If intPosition = 5 Or 55 then..

access will evaluate it as:

If (intPosition = 5) Or (55 = 55) then ...

which is Always true (55 = 55), so this IF will be executed.

 

[George-Bowyer]

Ah. I see.

Sort of.

I see not to do it again, anyway.

What is now going to give me sleepless nights is wondering how many other times I have made that mistake in other dbs over the past couple of decades or so...

 

[arnelgp]

SELECT CASE intPosition
CASE 5, 55
...
END SELECT

 

[The_Doc_Man]

This is an implementation-dependent thing, but... technically that IF statement immediately condones a Boolean argument.

IF intPosition = 5 Or 55 will be parsed as though it were IF ( intPosition = 5 ) Or 55 because of operator precedence rules. Obviously, the case of intPosition = 5 will trigger the sequence. BUT... remember that the IF forced this to be evaluated as Boolean. So what is the truth value of 55? I believe that the rule for VBA is that truth is a zero/non-zero test, with zero being FALSE. Well, 55 is non-zero so it counts as TRUE. Then, the OR of a TRUE value is always TRUE. So that is the detailed explanation of why it did what it did.

 

[Isaac]

I tested TDM's explanation for fun and it worked as stated!

?iif(0,"yes","no")
no

This is an implementation-dependent thing, but... technically that IF statement immediately condones a Boolean argument.

IF intPosition = 5 Or 55 will be parsed as though it were IF ( intPosition = 5 ) Or 55 because of operator precedence rules. Obviously, the case of intPosition = 5 will trigger the sequence. BUT... remember that the IF forced this to be evaluated as Boolean. So what is the truth value of 55? I believe that the rule for VBA is that truth is a zero/non-zero test, with zero being FALSE. Well, 55 is non-zero so it counts as TRUE. Then, the OR of a TRUE value is always TRUE. So that is the detailed explanation of why it did what it did.