difference between + and & in ssrs expression

Question

I am working on SSRS Report.

I have one question, what is the difference between + and & in ssrs-expression?

Please share your answer with short example. Thanks.

Answer 1

From SSRS operators description in Visual Studio:

+ Add two numbers. Also used to concatenate two strings.

Example:

=Fields!NumberCarsOwned.Value + 2
/* if NumberCarsOwned=10, result: 10 + 2 = 12 */

=Fields!String1.Value + Fields!String2.Value
/* if String1='curious' and String2 ='guy', result: 'curiousguy' */

="4" + 5
/* result: 9, implicit conversion of the first expression */

="a" + 5
/* error: incorrect input string format */

="a" + CStr(5)
/* result: a5 */

="a" + Str(5)
/* result: a 5, space between 'a' and '5' */

& Generates a string concatenation of two expressions.

Example:

=Fields!FirstName.Value & Fields!LastName.Value
/* if FirstName='curious' and LastName='guy', result: 'curiousguy' */

=4 & 5
/* it's concatenation anyway, result: 45 */

=CInt(4) & CInt(5)
/* even explicit cast to integer it's concatenation anyway, result: 45 */

Another useful operator is And (logical/bitwise AND), which may help to solve some tasks.

Example:

=4 And 5
/* result: 4, since 4 (100 binary) And 5 (101 binary) = 4 (100 binary) */
="4" And "5"
/* result: 4 */
="a" And "b"
/* error: incorrect input string format */

Answer 2

Actually its depends on how you are going to use them.

1.) For Concatenation purpose

According to MSDN:

• using & and + for concatenation will result to the same behaviour or output. It will only concatenates two strings.

Example:

= 1 & 2

Output: 12

= "1" + "2"

Output: 12

2.) For Arithmetic purpose

According to MSDN:

• using + for arithmetic purpose will add the two numbers together

Example:

= 1 + 2 //(using two numbers)

Output: 3

= 1 + "2" //(using a number and a number with quotes)

Output: 3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exceptions

Now there are exceptions that an integer and a string is mixed up or with other types

Example:

= 1 + "two"

Output: #Error -> this is because they are incompatible with each other.

• Workaround - use a conversion functions to convert the default data type for a field to the data type needed for calculations or to combine text.

Example:

= CSTR(1) + "two"

Output: 1two

There are other more conversion functions which you can use depending on your needs.