Addition Operator (+)

Description

Sums two numbers.

Syntax

result = expression1 + expression2

The + operator syntax has these parts:

Part	Description
result	Any numeric variable.
expression1	Any expression.
expression2	Any expression.

Remarks

Although you can also use the + operator to concatenate two character strings, you should use the & operator for concatenation to eliminate ambiguity and provide self-documenting code.

When you use the + operator, you may not be able to determine whether addition or string concatenation will occur.

The underlying subtype of the expressions determines the behavior of the + operator in the following way:

If	Then
Both expressions are numeric	Add.
Both expressions are strings	Concatenate.
One expression is numeric and the other is a string	Add.

If one or both expressions are Null expressions, result is Null. If both expressions are Empty, result is an Integer subtype. However, if only one expression is Empty, the other expression is returned unchanged as result.