1

Getting Started with Visual Basic 6.0

Visual Basic is initiated by using the Programs option > Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 > Visual Basic 6.0.
Clicking the Visual Basic icon, we can view a copyright screen enlisting the details of the license holder of
the copy of Visual Basic 6.0. Then it opens in to a new screen as shown in figure 1 below, with the
interface elements Such as Menu Bar, Tool Bar, The New Project dialog box. These elements permit the
user to build different types of Visual Basic applications.
The Integrated Development Environment
One of the most significant changes in Visual Basic 6.0 is the Integrated Development
Environment (IDE). IDE is a term commonly used in the programming world to describe the
interface and environment that we use to create our applications. It is called integrated because
we can access virtually all of the development tools that we need from one screen called an
interface. The IDE is also commonly referred to as the design environment, or the program.
Tha Visual Basic IDE is made up of a number of components
Menu Bar
Tool Bar
Project Explorer
Properties window
Form Layout Window
Toolbox
Form Designer
Object Browser
In previous versions of Visual Basic, the IDE was designed as a Single Document Interface
(SDI). In a Single Document Interface, each window is a free-floating window that is contained
within a main window and can move anywhere on the screen as long as Visual Basic is the
current application. But, in Visual Basic 6.0, the IDE is in a Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
format. In this format, the windows associated with the project will stay within a single container
known as the parent. Code and form-based windows will stay within the main container form.






2

Figure 1 The Visual Basic startup dialog box

Menu Bar
This Menu Bar displays the commands that are required to build an application. The main menu
items have sub menu items that can be chosen when needed. The toolbars in the menu bar
provide quick access to the commonly used commands and a button in the toolbar is clicked once
to carry out the action represented by it.
Toolbox
The Toolbox contains a set of controls that are used to place on a Form at design time thereby
creating the user interface area. Additional controls can be included in the toolbox by using the
Components menu item on the Project menu. A Toolbox is represented in figure 2 shown below.







3

Figure 2 Toolbox window with its controls available commonly.

Control Description
Pointer Provides a way to move and resize the controls form
PictureBox
Displays icons/bitmaps and metafiles. It displays text or acts as a visual
container for other controls.
TextBox Used to display message and enter text.
Frame Serves as a visual and functional container for controls
CommandButton Used to carry out the specified action when the user chooses it.
CheckBox Displays a True/False or Yes/No option.
OptionButton
OptionButton control which is a part of an option group allows the user to
select only one option even it displays mulitiple choices.
ListBox Displays a list of items from which a user can select one.
4

ComboBox
Contains a TextBox and a ListBox. This allows the user to select an ietm
from the dropdown ListBox, or to type in a selection in the TextBox.
HScrollBar and
VScrollBar
These controls allow the user to select a value within the specified range
of values
Timer Executes the timer events at specified intervals of time
DriveListBox Displays the valid disk drives and allows the user to select one of them.
DirListBox Allows the user to select the directories and paths, which are displayed.
FileListBox Displays a set of files from which a user can select the desired one.
Shape Used to add shape (rectangle, square or circle) to a Form
Line Used to draw straight line to the Form
Image
used to display images such as icons, bitmaps and metafiles. But less
capability than the PictureBox
Data
Enables the use to connect to an existing database and display
information from it.
OLE
Used to link or embed an object, display and manipulate data from other
windows based applications.
Label Displays a text that the user cannot modify or interact with.
Project Explorer
Docked on the right side of the screen, just under the tollbar, is the Project Explorer window. The
Project Explorer as shown in in figure servres as a quick reference to the various elements of a
project namely form, classes and modules. All of the object that make up the application are
packed in a project. A simple project will typically contain one form, which is a window that is
designed as part of a program's interface. It is possible to develop any number of forms for use in
a program, although a program may consist of a single form. In addition to forms, the Project
Explorer window also lists code modules and classes.
5

Figure 3 Project Explorer

Properties Window
The Properties Window is docked under the Project Explorer window. The Properties Window
exposes the various characteristics of selected objects. Each and every form in an application is
considered an object. Now, each object in Visual Basic has characteristics such as color and size.
Other characteristics affect not just the appearance of the object but the way it behaves too. All
these characteristics of an object are called its properties. Thus, a form has properties and any
controls placed on it will have propeties too. All of these properties are displayed in the
Properties Window.
Object Browser
The Object Browser allows us to browse through the various properties, events and methods that
are made available to us. It is accessed by selecting Object Browser from the View menu or
pressing the key F2. The left column of the Object Browser lists the objects and classes that are
available in the projects that are opened and the controls that have been referenced in them. It is
possible for us to scroll through the list and select the object or class that we wish to inspect.
After an object is picked up from the Classes list, we can see its members (properties, methods
and events) in the right column.
A property is represented by a small icon that has a hand holding a piece of paper. Methods are
denoted by little green blocks, while events are denoted by yellow lightning bolt icon.
Object naming conversions of controls (prefix)
Form -frm
Label-lbl
TextBox-txt
CommandButton-cmd
CheckBox -chk
OptionButton -opt
ComboBox -cbo
ListBox-lst
Frame-fme
PictureBox -pic
6

Image-img
Shape-shp
Line -lin
HScrollBar -hsb
VScrollBar vsb


Visual Basic 6.0 - Properties, Methods and
Events
All the controls in the ToolBox except the Pointer are objects in Visual Basic. These objects have
associated properties, methods and events.
Real world objects are loaded with properties. For example, a flower is loaded certain color,
shape and fragrance. Similarly programming objects are loaded with properties. A property is a
named attribute of a programming object. Properties define the characteristics of an object such
as Size, Color etc. or sometimes the way in which it behaves. For example, a TextBox accepts
properties such as Enabled, Font, MultiLine, Text, Visible, Width, etc.
Enables property allows the TextBox to be enabled or disabled at run time depending on
the condition set to True or False.
Font property sets a particular font in the TextBox.
MultiLine property allows the TextBox to accept and display multiple lines at run time.
Text property of the TextBox control sets a particular text in the control.
Visible property is used to hide the object at run time.
Width property sets the TextBox to the desired width at design time.
The properties that are discussed above are design-time properties that can be set at the design
tme by selecting the Properties Window. But certain properties cannot be set at desgn time. For
example, the CurrentX and CurrentY properties of a Form cannot be set at the design time.
A method is an action that can be performed on objects. For example, a cat is an object. Its
properties might include long white hair, blue eyes, 3 pounds weight etc. A complete definition
of cat must only encompass on its looks, but should also include a complete itemization of its
activities. Therefore, a cat's methods might be move, jump, play, breath etc.
Siimilarly in object-orinted programming, a method is a connected or built-in procedure, a block
of code that can be invoked to impart some action on a particular object. A method requires an
object to provide them with a context. For example, the word Move has no meaning in Visual
Basic, but the statement,
7

Text1.Move 700, 400
performs a very precise action. The TextBox control has other associated methods such as
Refresh, SetFocus, etc.
The Refresh method enforces a complete repaint of the control or a Form. For example,
Text1.Refresh refreshes the TextBox.
The Setfocus method moves the focus on the control. For Example Text1.SetFocus sets
the focus to TextBox control Text1.
Event Driven Programming
Visual Basic programs are built around events. Events are various things that can happen in a
program. this will become clearer when studied in contrast to procedural programming. In
procedural languages, an application is written is executed by checking for the program logically
through the program statements, one after another. For a temporary phase, the control may be
transferred to some other point in a program. While in an event driven application, the program
statements are executed only when a particular event calls a specific part of the code that is
assigned to the event.
Let us consider a TextBox control and a few of its associated events to understand the concept of
event driven programming. The TextBox control supports various events such as Change, Click,
MouseMove and many more that will be listed in the Properties dropdown list in the code
window for the TextBox control. We will look into a few of them as given below.
The code entered in the Change event fires when there is a change in the contents of the
TextBox
The Click event fires when the TextBox control is clicked.
The MouseMove event fires when the mouse is moved over the TextBox
As explained above, several events are associated with different controls and forms, some of the
events being common to most of them and few being specific to each control.




Visual Basic 6 (VB6) Data Types, Modules
and Operators
8

Visual Basic uses building blocks such as Variables, Data Types, Procedures, Functions and Control
Structures in its programming environment. This section concentrates on the programming
fundamentals of Visual Basic with the blocks specified.
Modules
Code in Visual Basic is stored in the form of modules. The three kind of modules are Form
Modules, Standard Modules and Class Modules. A simple application may contain a single
Form, and the code resides in that Form module itself. As the application grows, additional
Forms are added and there may be a common code to be executed in several Forms. To avoid the
duplication of code, a separate module containing a procedure is created that implements the
common code. This is a standard Module.
Class module (.CLS filename extension) are the foundation of the object oriented programming
in Visual Basic. New objects can be created by writing code in class modules. Each module can
contain:
Declarations : May include constant, type, variable and DLL procedure declarations.
Procedures : A sub function, or property procedure that contain pieces of code that can be
executed as a unit.
These are the rules to follow when naming elements in VB - variables, constants, controls,
procedures, and so on:
A name must begin with a letter.
May be as much as 255 characters long (but don't forget that somebody has to type the
stuff!).
Must not contain a space or an embedded period or type-declaration characters used to
specify a data type; these are ! # % $ & @
Must not be a reserved word (that is part of the code, like Option, for example)
The dash, although legal, should be avoided because it may be confused with the minus
sign. Instead of First-name use First_name or FirstName.
Data types in Visual Basic 6
By default Visual Basic variables are of variant data types. The variant data type can store
numeric, date/time or string data. When a variable is declared, a data type is supplied for it that
determines the kind of data they can store. The fundamental data types in Visual Basic including
variant are integer, long, single, double, string, currency, byte and boolean. Visual Basic supports
a vast array of data types. Each data type has limits to the kind of information and the minimum
and maximum values it can hold. In addition, some types can interchange with some other types.
A list of Visual Basic's simple data types are given below.
1. Numeric
9

Byte Store integer values in the range of 0 - 255
Integer Store integer values in the range of (-32,768) - (+ 32,767)
Long Store integer values in the range of (- 2,147,483,468) - (+ 2,147,483,468)
Single Store floating point value in the range of (-3.4x10-38) - (+ 3.4x1038)
Double Store large floating value which exceeding the single data type value
Currency
store monetary values. It supports 4 digits to the right of decimal point and
15 digits to the left
2. String
Use to store alphanumeric values. A variable length string can store approximately 4 billion
characters
3. Date
Use to store date and time values. A variable declared as date type can store both date and time
values and it can store date values 01/01/0100 up to 12/31/9999
4. Boolean
Boolean data types hold either a true or false value. These are not stored as numeric values and
cannot be used as such. Values are internally stored as -1 (True) and 0 (False) and any non-zero
value is considered as true.
5. Variant
Stores any type of data and is the default Visual Basic data type. In Visual Basic if we declare a
variable without any data type by default the data type is assigned as default.
Operators in Visual Basic
Arithmetical Operators
Operators Description Example
Result
+ Add 5+5 10
10

- Substract 10-5 5
/ Divide 25/5 5
\ Integer Division 20\3 6
* Multiply 5*4 20
^ Exponent (power of) 3^3 27
Mod Remainder of division 20 Mod 6 2
& String concatenation "George"&" "&"Bush" "George Bush"
Relational Operators
Operators Description Example Result
> Greater than 10>8 True
< Less than 10<8 False
>= Greater than or equal to 20>=10 True
<= Less than or equal to 10<=20 True
<> Not Equal to 5<>4 True
= Equal to 5=7 False
Logical Operators
Operators Description
OR Operation will be true if either of the operands is true
AND Operation will be true only if both the operands are true


11


Variables in Visual Basic 6
Variables are the memory locations which are used to store values temporarily. A defined naming
strategy has to be followed while naming a variable. A variable name must begin with an alphabet letter
and should not exceed 255 characters. It must be unique within the same scope. It should not contain
any special character like %, &, !, #, @ or $.
There are many ways of declaring variables in Visual Basic. Depending on where the variables
are declared and how they are declared, we can determine how they can be used by our
application. The different ways of declaring variables in Visual Basic are listed below and
elucidated in this section.
Explicit Declaration
Using Option Explicit statement
Scope of Variables
Explicit Declaration
Declaring a variable tells Visual Basic to reserve space in memory. It is not must that a variable
should be declared before using it. Automatically whenever Visual Basic encounters a new
variable, it assigns the default variable type and value. This is called implicit declaration. Though
this type of declaration is easier for the user, to have more control over the variables, it is
advisable to declare them explicitly. The variables are declared with a Dim statement to name the
variable and its type. The As type clause in the Dim statement allows to define the data type or
object type of the variable. This is called explicit declaration.
Syntax
Dim variable [As Type]
For example,
Dim strName As String
Dim intCounter As Integer
Using Option Explicit statement
It may be convenient to declare variables implicitly, but it can lead to errors that may not be
recognized at run time. Say, for example a variable by name intcount is used implicitly and is
assigned to a value. In the next step, this field is incremented by 1 by the following statement
Intcount = Intcount + 1
12

This calculation will result in intcount yielding a value of 1 as intcount would have been
initialized to zero. This is because the intcount variable has been mityped as incont in the right
hand side of the second variable. But Visual Basic does not see this as a mistake and considers it
to be new variable and therefore gives a wrong result.
In Visual Basic, to prevent errors of this nature, we can declare a variable by adding the
following statement to the general declaration section of the Form.
Option Explicit
This forces the user to declare all the variables. The Option Explicit statement checks in the
module for usage of any undeclared variables and reports an error to the user. The user can thus
rectify the error on seeing this error message.
The Option Explicit statement can be explicitly placed in the general declaration section of each
module using the following steps.
Click Options item in the Tools menu
Click the Editor tab in the Options dialog box
Check Require Variable Declaration option and then click the OK button
Scope of variables
A variable is scoped to a procedure-level (local) or module-level variable depending on how it is
declared. The scope of a variable, procedure or object determines which part of the code in our
application are aware of the variable's existence. A variable is declared in general declaration
section of e Form, and hence is available to all the procedures. Local variables are recognized
only in the procedure in which they are declared. They can be declared with Dim and Static
keywords. If we want a variable to be available to all of the procedures within the same module,
or to all the procedures in an application, a variable is declared with broader scope.
Local Variables
A local variable is one that is declared inside a procedure. This variable is only available to the
code inside the procedure and can be declared using the Dim statements as given below.
Dim sum As Integer
The local variables exist as long as the procedure in which they are declared, is executing. Once
a procedure is executed, the values of its local variables are lost and the memory used by these
variables is freed and can be reclaimed. Variables that are declared with keyword Dim exist only
as long as the procedure is being executed.
13

Static Variables
Static variables are not reinitialized each time Visual Invokes a procedure and therefore retains
or preserves value even when a procedure ends. In case we need to keep track of the number of
times a command button in an application is clicked, a static counter variable has to be declared.
These static variables are also ideal for making controls alternately visible or invisible. A static
variable is declared as given below.
Static intPermanent As Integer
Variables have a lifetime in addition to scope. The values in a module-level and public variables
are preserved for the lifetime of an application whereas local variables declared with Dim exist
only while the procedure in which they are declared is still being executed. The value of a local
variable can be preserved using the Static keyword. The follwoing procedure calculates the
running total by adding new values to the previous values stored in the static variable value.
Function RunningTotal ( )
Static Accumulate
Accumulate = Accumulate + num
RunningTotal = Accumulate
End Function
If the variable Accumulate was declared with Dim instead of static, the previously accumulated
values would not be preserved accross calls to the procedure, and the procedure would return the
same value with which it was called. To make all variables in a procedure static, the Static
keyword is placed at the beginning of the procedure heading as given in the below statement.
Static Function RunningTotal ( )
Example
The following is an example of an event procedure for a CommandButton that counts and
displays the number of clicks made.
Private Sub Command1_Click ( )
Static Counter As Integer
Counter = Counter + 1
Print Counter
End Sub
The first time we click the CommandButton, the Counter starts with its default value of zero.
Visual Basic then adds 1 to it and prints the result.
14

Module Levele Variables
A module level variable is available to all the procedures in the module. They are declared using
the Public or the Private keyword. If you declare a variable using a Private or a Dim statement in
the declaration section of a modulea standard BAS module, a form module, a class module,
and so onyou're creating a private module-level variable. Such variables are visible only from
within the module they belong to and can't be accessed from the outside. In general, these
variables are useful for sharing data among procedures in the same module:
' In the declarative section of any module
Private LoginTime As Date ' A private module-level variable
Dim LoginPassword As String ' Another private module-level variable
You can also use the Public attribute for module-level variables, for all module types except
BAS modules. (Public variables in BAS modules are global variables.) In this case, you're
creating a strange beast: a Public module-level variable that can be accessed by all procedures in
the module to share data and that also can be accessed from outside the module. In this case,
however, it's more appropriate to describe such a variable as a property:
' In the declarative section of Form1 module
Public CustomerName As String ' A Public property
You can access a module property as a regular variable from inside the module and as a custom
property from the outside:
' From outside Form1 module...
Form1.CustomerName = "John Smith"
The lifetime of a module-level variable coincides with the lifetime of the module itself. Private
variables in standard BAS modules live for the entire life of the application, even if they can be
accessed only while Visual Basic is executing code in that module. Variables in form and class
modules exist only when that module is loaded in memory. In other words, while a form is active
(but not necessarily visible to the user) all its variables take some memory, and this memory is
released only when the form is completely unloaded from memory. The next time the form is re-
created, Visual Basic reallocates memory for all variables and resets them to their default values
(0 for numeric values, "" for strings, Nothing for object variables).
Public vs Local Variables
A variable can have the same name and different scope. For example, we can have a public
variable named R and within a procedure we can declare a local variable R. References to the
name R within the procedure would access the local variable and references to R outside the
procedure would access the public variable.

15

Procedures in Visual Basic 6
Visual Basic offers different types of procedures to execute small sections of coding in applications. The
various procedures are elucidated in details in this section. Visual Basic programs can be broken into
smaller logical components called Procedures. Procedures are useful for condensing repeated
operations such as the frequently used calculations, text and control manipulation etc. The benefits of
using procedures in programming are:
It is easier to debug a program a program with procedures, which breaks a program into discrete
logical limits.
Procedures used in one program can act as building blocks for other programs with slight
modifications.
A Procedure can be Sub, Function or Property Procedure.
Sub Procedures
A sub procedure can be placed in standard, class and form modules. Each time the procedure is
called, the statements between Sub and End Sub are executed. The syntax for a sub procedure is
as follows:
[Private | Public] [Static] Sub Procedurename [( arglist)]
[ statements]
End Sub
arglist is a list of argument names separated by commas. Each argument acts like a variable in
the procedure. There are two types of Sub Procedures namely general procedures and event
procedures.
Event Procedures
An event procedure is a procedure block that contains the control's actual name, an
underscore(_), and the event name. The following syntax represents the event procedure for a
Form_Load event.
Private Sub Form_Load()
....statement block..
End Sub
Event Procedures acquire the declarations as Private by default.
16

General Procedures
A general procedure is declared when several event procedures perform the same actions. It is a
good programming practice to write common statements in a separate procedure (general
procedure) and then call them in the event procedure.
In order to add General procedure:
The Code window is opened for the module to which the procedure is to be added.
The Add Procedure option is chosen from the Tools menu, which opens an Add
Procedure dialog box as shown in the figure given below.
The name of the procedure is typed in the Name textbox
Under Type, Sub is selected to create a Sub procedure, Function to create a Function
procedure or Property to create a Property procedure.
Under Scope, Public is selected to create a procedure that can be invoked outside the
module, or Private to create a procedure that can be invoked only from within the
module.

We can also create a new procedure in the current module by typing Sub ProcedureName,
Function ProcedureName, or Property ProcedureName in the Code window. A Function
procedure returns a value and a Sub Procedure does not return a value.
Function Procedures
Functions are like sub procedures, except they return a value to the calling procedure. They are
especially useful for taking one or more pieces of data, called arguments and performing some
tasks with them. Then the functions returns a value that indicates the results of the tasks
complete within the function.
The following function procedure calculates the third side or hypotenuse of a right triangle,
where A and B are the other two sides. It takes two arguments A and B (of data type Double) and
finally returns the results.
17

Function Hypotenuse (A As Double, B As Double) As Double
Hypotenuse = sqr (A^2 + B^2)
End Function
The above function procedure is written in the general declarations section of the Code window.
A function can also be written by selecting the Add Procedure dialog box from the Tools menu
and by choosing the required scope and type.
Property Procedures
A property procedure is used to create and manipulate custom properties. It is used to create read
only properties for Forms, Standard modules and Class modules.Visual Basic provides three kind
of property procedures-Property Let procedure that sets the value of a property, Property Get
procedure that returns the value of a property, and Property Set procedure that sets the references
to an object.


Control Structures in Visual Basic 6.0
Control Statements are used to control the flow of program's execution. Visual Basic supports control
structures such as if... Then, if...Then ...Else, Select...Case, and Loop structures such as Do While...Loop,
While...Wend, For...Next etc method.
If...Then selection structure
The If...Then selection structure performs an indicated action only when the condition is True;
otherwise the action is skipped.
Syntax of the If...Then selection
If <condition> Then
statement
End If
e.g.: If average>75 Then
txtGrade.Text = "A"
End If
18

If...Then...Else selection structure
The If...Then...Else selection structure allows the programmer to specify that a different action is
to be performed when the condition is True than when the condition is False.
Syntax of the If...Then...Else selection
If <condition > Then
statements
Else
statements
End If
e.g.: If average>50 Then
txtGrade.Text = "Pass"
Else
txtGrade.Text = "Fail"
End If
Nested If...Then...Else selection structure
Nested If...Then...Else selection structures test for multiple cases by placing If...Then...Else
selection structures inside If...Then...Else structures.
Syntax of the Nested If...Then...Else selection structure
You can use Nested If either of the methods as shown above
Method 1
If < condition 1 > Then
statements
ElseIf < condition 2 > Then
statements
ElseIf < condition 3 > Then
statements
Else
Statements
End If
Method 2
If < condition 1 > Then
statements
19

Else
If < condition 2 > Then
statements
Else
If < condition 3 > Then
statements
Else
Statements
End If
End If
EndIf
e.g.: Assume you have to find the grade using nested if and display in a text box
If average > 75 Then
txtGrade.Text = "A"
ElseIf average > 65 Then
txtGrade.Text = "B"
ElseIf average > 55 Then
txtGrade.text = "C"
ElseIf average > 45 Then
txtGrade.Text = "S"
Else
txtGrade.Text = "F"
End If
Select...Case selection structure
Select...Case structure is an alternative to If...Then...ElseIf for selectively executing a single
block of statements from among multiple block of statements. Select...case is more convenient to
use than the If...Else...End If. The following program block illustrate the working of
Select...Case.
Syntax of the Select...Case selection structure
Select Case Index
Case 0
Statements
Case 1
Statements
End Select
e.g.: Assume you have to find the grade using select...case and display in the text box
20

Dim average as Integer

average = txtAverage.Text
Select Case average
Case 100 To 75
txtGrade.Text ="A"
Case 74 To 65
txtGrade.Text ="B"
Case 64 To 55
txtGrade.Text ="C"
Case 54 To 45
txtGrade.Text ="S"
Case 44 To 0
txtGrade.Text ="F"
Case Else
MsgBox "Invalid average marks"
End Select
Note: In this example I have used a message box function. In later lessons you will learn how to
use message box functions.




Loops (Repetition Structures) in Visual Basic
6
A repetition structure allows the programmer to that an action is to be repeated until given
condition is true.
Do While... Loop Statement
The Do While...Loop is used to execute statements until a certain condition is met. The
following Do Loop counts from 1 to 100.
Dim number As Integer
number = 1
Do While number <= 100
21

number = number + 1
Loop
A variable number is initialized to 1 and then the Do While Loop starts. First, the condition is
tested; if condition is True, then the statements are executed. When it gets to the Loop it goes
back to the Do and tests condition again. If condition is False on the first pass, the statements are
never executed.
While... Wend Statement
A While...Wend statement behaves like the Do While...Loop statement. The following
While...Wend counts from 1 to 100
Dim number As Integer

number = 1
While number <=100
number = number + 1
Wend
Do...Loop While Statement
The Do...Loop While statement first executes the statements and then test the condition after
each execution. The following program block illustrates the structure:
Dim number As Long
number = 0
Do
number = number + 1
Loop While number < 201
The programs executes the statements between Do and Loop While structure in any case. Then it
determines whether the counter is less than 501. If so, the program again executes the statements
between Do and Loop While else exits the Loop.
Do Until...Loop Statement
Unlike the Do While...Loop and While...Wend repetition structures, the Do Until... Loop
structure tests a condition for falsity. Statements in the body of a Do Until...Loop are executed
repeatedly as long as the loop-continuation test evaluates to False.
An example for Do Until...Loop statement. The coding is typed inside the click event of the
command button
22

Dim number As Long
number=0
Do Until number > 1000
number = number + 1
Print number
Loop
Numbers between 1 to 1000 will be displayed on the form as soon as you click on the command
button.
The For...Next Loop
The For...Next Loop is another way to make loops in Visual Basic. For...Next repetition
structure handles all the details of counter-controlled repetition. The following loop counts the
numbers from 1 to 100:
Dim x As Integer
For x = 1 To 50
Print x
Next
In order to count the numbers from 1 yo 50 in steps of 2, the following loop can be used
For x = 1 To 50 Step 2
Print x
Next
The following loop counts numbers as 1, 3, 5, 7..etc

The above coding will display numbers vertically on the form. In order to display numbers
horizontally the following method can be used.
For x = 1 To 50
Print x & Space$ (2);
Next
To increase the space between the numbers increase the value inside the brackets after the &
Space$.
Following example is a For...Next repetition structure which is with the If condition used.
Dim number As Integer
For number = 1 To 10
If number = 4 Then
23

Print "This is number 4"
Else
Print number
End If
Next
In the output instead of number 4 you will get the "This is number 4".


Exit For and Exit Do Statement in Visual
basic 6
A For...Next loop condition can be terminated by an Exit For statement. Consider the following
statement block.
Dim x As Integer
For x = 1 To 10
Print x
If x = 5 Then
Print "The program exited at x=5"
Exit For
End If
Next
The preceding code increments the value of x by 1 until it reaches the condition x = 5. The Exit
For statement is executed and it terminates the For...Next loop. The Following statement block
containing Do...While loop is terminated using Exit Do statement.
Dim x As Integer
Do While x < 10
Print x
x = x + 1
If x = 5 Then
Print "The program is exited at x=5"
Exit Do
End If
Loop
With...End With statement
When properties are set for objects or methods are called, a lot of coding is included that acts on
24

the same object. It is easier to read the code by implementing the With...End With statement.
Multiple properties can be set and multiple methods can be called by using the With...End With
statement. The code is executed more quickly and efficiently as the object is evaluated only
once. The concept can be clearly understood with following example.
With Text1
.Font.Size = 14
.Font.Bold = True
.ForeColor = vbRed
.Height = 230
.Text = "Hello World"
End With
In the above coding, the object Text1, which is a text box is evaluated only once instead of every
associated property or method. This makes the coding simpler and efficient.


VB Array - Arrays in Visual Basic 6
An array is a consecutive group of memory locations that all have the same name and the same
type. To refer to a particular location or element in the array, we specify the array name and the
array element position number.
The Individual elements of an array are identified using an index. Arrays have upper and lower
bounds and the elements have to lie within those bounds. Each index number in an array is
allocated individual memory space and therefore users must evade declaring arrays of larger size
than required. We can declare an array of any of the basic data types including variant, user-
defined types and object variables. The individual elements of an array are all of the same data
type.
Declaring arrays
Arrays occupy space in memory. The programmer specifies the array type and the number of
elements required by the array so that the compiler may reserve the appropriate amount of
memory. Arrays may be declared as Public (in a code module), module or local. Module arrays
are declared in the general declarations using keyword Dim or Private. Local arrays are declared
in a procedure using Dim or Static. Array must be declared explicitly with keyword "As".
There are two types of arrays in Visual Basic namely:
Fixed-size array : The size of array always remains the same-size doesn't change during the
25

program execution.
Dynamic array : The size of the array can be changed at the run time- size changes during the
program execution.
Fixed-sized Arrays
When an upper bound is specified in the declaration, a Fixed-array is created. The upper limit
should always be within the range of long data type.
Declaring a fixed-array
Dim numbers(5) As Integer
In the above illustration, numbers is the name of the array, and the number 6 included in the
parentheses is the upper limit of the array. The above declaration creates an array with 6
elements, with index numbers running from 0 to 5.
If we want to specify the lower limit, then the parentheses should include both the lower and
upper limit along with the To keyword. An example for this is given below.
Dim numbers (1 To 6 ) As Integer
In the above statement, an array of 10 elements is declared but with indexes running from 1 to 6.
A public array can be declared using the keyword Public instead of Dim as shown below.
Public numbers(5) As Integer
Multidimensional Arrays
Arrays can have multiple dimensions. A common use of multidimensional arrays is to represent
tables of values consisting of information arranged in rows and columns. To identify a particular
table element, we must specify two indexes: The first (by convention) identifies the element's
row and the second (by convention) identifies the element's column.
Tables or arrays that require two indexes to identify a particular element are called two
dimensional arrays. Note that multidimensional arrays can have more than two dimensions.
Visual Basic supports at least 60 array dimensions, but most people will need to use more than
two or three dimensional-arrays.
The following statement declares a two-dimensional array 50 by 50 array within a procedure.
Dim AvgMarks ( 50, 50)
It is also possible to define the lower limits for one or both the dimensions as for fixed size
26

arrays. An example for this is given here.
Dim Marks ( 101 To 200, 1 To 100)
An example for three dimensional-array with defined lower limits is given below.
Dim Details( 101 To 200, 1 To 100, 1 To 100)
Static and dynamic arrays
Basically, you can create either static or dynamic arrays. Static arrays must include a fixed
number of items, and this number must be known at compile time so that the compiler can set
aside the necessary amount of memory. You create a static array using a Dim statement with a
constant argument:
' This is a static array.
Dim Names(100) As String
Visual Basic starts indexing the array with 0. Therefore, the preceding array actually holds 101
items.
Most programs don't use static arrays because programmers rarely know at compile time how
many items you need and also because static arrays can't be resized during execution. Both these
issues are solved by dynamic arrays. You declare and create dynamic arrays in two distinct steps.
In general, you declare the array to account for its visibility (for example, at the beginning of a
module if you want to make it visible by all the procedures of the module) using a Dim
command with an empty pair of brackets. Then you create the array when you actually need it,
using a ReDim statement:
' An array defined in a BAS module (with Private scope)
Dim Customers() As String
...
Sub Main()
' Here you create the array.
ReDim Customer(1000) As String
End Sub
If you're creating an array that's local to a procedure, you can do everything with a single ReDim
statement:
Sub PrintReport()
' This array is visible only to the procedure.
ReDim Customers(1000) As String
' ...
End Sub
27

If you don't specify the lower index of an array, Visual Basic assumes it to be 0, unless an Option
Base 1 statement is placed at the beginning of the module. My suggestion is this: Never use an
Option Base statement because it makes code reuse more difficult. (You can't cut and paste
routines without worrying about the current Option Base.) If you want to explicitly use a lower
index different from 0, use this syntax instead:
ReDim Customers(1 To 1000) As String
Dynamic arrays can be re-created at will, each time with a different number of items. When you
re-create a dynamic array, its contents are reset to 0 (or to an empty string) and you lose the data
it contains. If you want to resize an array without losing its contents, use the ReDim Preserve
command:
ReDim Preserve Customers(2000) As String
When you're resizing an array, you can't change the number of its dimensions nor the type of the
values it contains. Moreover, when you're using ReDim Preserve on a multidimensional array,
you can resize only its last dimension:
ReDim Cells(1 To 100, 10) As Integer
...
ReDim Preserve Cells(1 To 100, 20) As Integer ' This works.
ReDim Preserve Cells(1 To 200, 20) As Integer ' This doesn't.
Finally, you can destroy an array using the Erase statement. If the array is dynamic, Visual Basic
releases the memory allocated for its elements (and you can't read or write them any longer); if
the array is static, its elements are set to 0 or to empty strings.
You can use the LBound and UBound functions to retrieve the lower and upper indices. If the
array has two or more dimensions, you need to pass a second argument to these functions to
specify the dimension you need:
Print LBound(Cells, 1) ' Displays 1, lower index of 1st dimension
Print LBound(Cells) ' Same as above
Print UBound(Cells, 2) ' Displays 20, upper index of 2nd dimension
' Evaluate total number of elements.
NumEls = (UBound(Cells) _ LBound(Cells) + 1) * _
(UBound(Cells, 2) _ LBound(Cells, 2) + 1)
Arrays within UDTs
UDT structures can include both static and dynamic arrays. Here's a sample structure that
contains both types:
Type MyUDT
StaticArr(100) As Long
28

DynamicArr() As Long
End Type
...
Dim udt As MyUDT
' You must DIMension the dynamic array before using it.
ReDim udt.DynamicArr(100) As Long
' You don't have to do that with static arrays.
udt.StaticArr(1) = 1234
The memory needed by a static array is allocated within the UDT structure; for example, the
StaticArr array in the preceding code snippet takes exactly 400 bytes. Conversely, a dynamic
array in a UDT takes only 4 bytes, which form a pointer to the memory area where the actual
data is stored. Dynamic arrays are advantageous when each individual UDT variable might host
a different number of array items. As with all dynamic arrays, if you don't dimension a dynamic
array within a UDT before accessing its items, you get an error 9"Subscript out of range."


VB6 Arrays and variants (Visual Basic 6)
Visual Basic lets you store arrays in Variant variables and then access the array items using the
Variant variable as if it were an array:
ReDim Names(100) As String, var As Variant
' Initialize the Names array (omitted).
var = Names() ' Copy the array into the Variant.
Print var(1) ' Access array items through the Variant.
You can even create an array of Variant elements on the fly using the Array function and store it
in a Variant variable:
' Arrays returned by the Array() function are zero-based.
Factorials = Array(1, 1, 2, 6, 24, 120, 720, 5040, 40320, 362880, 3628800)
Likewise, you can pass an array to a procedure that expects a Variant parameter and then access
the elements of the array through that parameter:
' A polymorphic function that sums the values in any array
Function ArraySum(arr As Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Long, result As Variant
For i = LBound(arr) To UBound(arr)
result = result + arr(i)
Next
29

ArraySum = result
End Function
The most interesting feature of the preceding routine is that it works correctly with any type of
numeric one-dimensional array. It even works with String arrays, but in that case you get the
concatenation of all items, not their sum. This procedure is extremely powerful and reduces the
amount of code you have to write to deal with different kinds of arrays. But you should be aware
that accessing array items through a Variant parameter noticeably slows down the execution. If
you need the best performance, write specific routines that process specific types of arrays.
You can also pass a multidimensional array to a routine that expects a Variant parameter. In this
case, you can still access the array elements through the Variants, but if you don't know at
compile time how many dimensions the array has, your routine has to determine that number
before proceeding. You can get this value using a trial-and-error approach:
' This routine returns the number of dimensions of the array
' passed as an argument, or 0 if it isn't an array.
Function NumberOfDims(arr As Variant) As Integer
Dim dummy as Long
On Error Resume Next
Do
dummy = UBound(arr, NumberOfDims + 1)
If Err Then Exit Do
NumberOfDims = NumberOfDims + 1
Loop
End Function
It's perfectly legal to use the function name inside a function's code as if it were a local variable,
as the previous code snippet does. Often this technique lets you save a local variable and a final
assignment before exiting the routine, which indirectly makes your code run slightly faster.
Here's a modified ArraySum routine that uses NumberOfDims and works with both one- and
two-dimensional arrays:
Function ArraySum2(arr As Variant) As Variant
Dim i As Long, j As Long, result As Variant
' First check whether we can really work with this array.
Select Case NumberOfDims(arr)
Case 1 ' One-dimensional array
For i = LBound(arr) To UBound(arr)
result = result + arr(i)
Next
Case 2 ' Two-dimensional array
For i = LBound(arr) To UBound(arr)
For j = LBound(arr, 2) To UBound(arr, 2)
result = result + arr(i, j)
30

Next
Next
Case Else ' Not an array, or too many dimensions
Err.Raise 1001, , "Not an array or more than two dimensions"
End Select
ArraySum2 = result
End Function
Often, if a Variant contains an array, you don't know the basic type of that array in advance. The
VarType function returns the sum of the vbArray constant (decimal 8192), plus the VarType of
the data included in the array. This lets you test that the array passed to a routine is of a given
type:
If VarType(arr) = (vbArray + vbInteger) Then
' Array of integers
ElseIf VarType(arr) = (vbArray + vbLong) Then
' Array of Longs
ElseIf VarType(arr) And vbArray Then
' An array of another type (just tests a bit)
End If
You can also test whether a Variant holds an array using the IsArray function. When a Variant
variable holds an array, the TypeName function appends a pair of empty parentheses to its result:
Print TypeName(arr) ' Displays "Integer()"
As I've explained, you can either assign an array to a Variant variable or you can pass an array as
a Variant parameter of a procedure. While the two operations look very similar, they're
substantially different. To execute an assignment, Visual Basic makes a physical copy of the
array. As a result, the Variant variable doesn't point to the original data but to the copy; from this
point on, all the manipulations you do through the Variant variable don't affect the original array.
Conversely, if you call a procedure and pass an array as a Variant parameter, no data is
physically copied and the Variant simply works as an alias of the array. You can reorder array
items or modify their values, and your changes are immediately reflected in the original array



Assigning and returning arrays in Visual
Basic 6
31

Visual Basic 6 adds two important features to arrays. First, you can perform assignments
between arrays. Second, you can write procedures that return arrays. You can assign arrays only
of the same type and only if the target is a dynamic array. (The latter condition is necessary
because Visual Basic might need to resize the target array.)
ReDim a(10, 10) As Integer
Dim b() As Integer
' Fill the a array with data (omitted).
b() = a() ' This works!
It's no surprise that native assignment commands are always faster than the corresponding
ForNext loops that copy one item at a time. The actual increment in speed heavily depends on
the data type of the arrays and can vary from 20 percent to 10 times faster. A native assignment
between arrays also works if the source array is held in a Variant. Under Visual Basic 4 and 5,
you could store an array in a Variant, but you couldn't do the oppositethat is, retrieve an array
stored in a Variant variable and store it back in an array of a specific type. This flaw has been
fixed in Visual Basic 6:
Dim v As Variant, s(100) As String, t() As String
' Fill the s() array (omitted).
v = s() ' Assign to a Variant.
t() = v ' Assign from a Variant to a dynamic string array.
You often use the capacity to assign arrays to build functions that return arrays. Notice that pair
of brackets at the end of the first line in the following procedure:
Function InitArray(first As Long, Last As Long) As Long()
ReDim result(first To Last) As Long
Dim i As Long
For i = first To Last
result(i) = i
Next
InitArray = result
End Function
The new capability of returning arrays lets you write highly versatile array routines. Visual Basic
6 itself includes a few new string functionsnamely Join, Split, and Filterthat rely on it.
(You'll find more about these new string functions in Chapter 5). Here are two examples of what
you can do with this intriguing feature:
' Returns a portion of a Long array
' Note: fails if FIRST or LAST are not valid
Function SubArray(arr() As Long, first As Long, last As Long, _
newFirstIndex As Long) As Long()
Dim i As Long
ReDim result(newFirstIndex To last _ first + newFirstIndex) As Long
32

For i = first To last
result(newFirstIndex + i - first) = arr(i)
Next
SubArray = result
End Function
' Returns an array with all the selected items in a ListBox
Function SelectedListItems(lst As ListBox) As String()
Dim i As Long, j As Long
ReDim result(0 To lst.SelCount) As String
For i = 0 To lst.ListCount - 1
If lst.Selected(i) Then
j = j + 1
result(j) = lst.List(i)
End If
Next
SelectedListItems = result
End Function


Byte Arrays in VB6 (Visual Basic 6)
Byte arrays are somewhat special because Visual Basic lets you directly assign strings to them.
In this case, Visual Basic performs a direct memory copy of the contents of the string. Because
all Visual Basic 5 and 6 strings are Unicode strings (two bytes per character), the target array is
redimensioned to account for the actual string length in bytes (which you can determine using
the LenB function). If the string contains only characters whose code is in the range 0 through
255 (the case if you work with Latin alphabets), every other byte in the array will be 0:
Dim b() As Byte, Text As String
Text = "123"
b() = Text ' Now b() contains six items: 49 0 50 0 51 0
It's also possible to perform the opposite operation:
Text = b()
This special treatment reserved for Byte arrays is meant to ease the conversion from old Visual
Basic 3 applications that use strings to hold binary data, as I explained in "The Byte Data Type"
section, earlier in this chapter. You can exploit this feature to create blindingly fast string
routines when you have to process each individual character in a string. For example, see how
33

quickly you can count all the spaces in a string:
' NOTE: this function might not work with non-Latin alphabets.
Function CountSpaces(Text As String) As Long
Dim b() As Byte, i As Long
b() = Text
For i = 0 To UBound(b) Step 2
' Consider only even-numbered items.
' Save time and code using the function name as a local variable.
If b(i) = 32 Then CountSpaces = CountSpaces + 1
Next
End Function
The preceding routine is about three times faster than a regular routine, which uses Asc and
Mid$ functions to process all the characters in the argument, and even faster if you turn on the
Remove Array Bounds Check compiler optimization. The only drawback of this technique is that
it isn't Unicode-friendly because it considers only the least significant byte in each 2-byte
character. If you plan to convert your application to some language that relies on Unicode
Japanese, for exampleyou should stay clear of this optimization technique.


Inserting and deleting items using Arrays-
Visual Basic 6
Some of the most common operations you perform on arrays are inserting and deleting items,
shifting all the remaining elements toward higher indices to make room or toward lower indices
to fill the "hole" a deletion has left. You usually do this with a ForNext loop, and you can even
write generic array procedures that work with any type of array (with the usual restrictions about
arrays of UDTs and fixed-length strings that can't be passed to a Variant parameter):
Sub InsertArrayItem(arr As Variant, index As Long, newValue As Variant)
Dim i As Long
For i = UBound(arr) - 1 To index Step -1
arr(i + 1) = arr(i)
Next
arr(index) = newValue
End Sub
Sub DeleteArrayItem(arr As Variant, index As Long)
Dim i As Long
For i = index To UBound(arr) - 1
34

arr(i) = arr(i + 1)
Next
' VB will convert this to 0 or to an empty string.
arr(UBound(arr)) = Empty
End Sub
If your application works intensively with arrays, you might find that an approach based on
ForNext loops is too slow. In some cases, you can considerably speed up these operations by
using the RtlMoveMemory API function, which many Visual Basic programmers know under its
popular alias name, CopyMemory.1 This function lets you move a block of bytes from one
memory address to another memory address and works correctly even if the two areas partially
overlap. Here's the code that inserts a new item in an array of Longs:
Private Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" _
(dest As Any, source As Any, ByVal numBytes As Long)
Sub InsertArrayItemLong(arr() As Long, index As Long, newValue As Long)
' We let VB evaluate the size of each item using LenB().
If index < UBound(arr) Then
CopyMemory arr(index + 1), arr(index), _
(UBound(arr) _ index) * LenB(arr(index))
End If
arr(index) = newValue
End Sub
Sub DeleteArrayItemLong(arr() As Long, index As Long)
If index < UBound(arr) Then
CopyMemory arr(index), arr(index + 1), _
(UBound(arr) _ index) * LenB(arr(index))
End If
arr(index) = Empty
End Sub
IMPORTANT NOTE: The prerequisite for using the CopyMemory API function is that data
must be stored in contiguous memory locations, so you absolutely can't use it to insert or remove
elements in String and Object arrays, nor in arrays of UDTs that contain conventional strings,
object references, or dynamic arrays. (Fixed-length strings and static arrays in UDTs are OK,
though.)
Note that while you can't use the preceding routines for arrays other than Long arrays, the
statements in the procedure body can be recycled for another data type without any change,
thanks to the use of the LenB function. Therefore, you can derive new array functions that work
for other data types by simply modifying the procedure's name and its parameter list. For
example, you can create a new function that deletes an item in a Double array by editing just the
first line of code (shown in boldface):
35

Sub DeleteArrayItemDouble(arr() As Double, index As Long)
' All the other statements here are the same as in DeleteArrayItemLong
' ...
End Sub


Sorting Data using Arrays - Visual Basic 6
Sorting is an operation that you often perform on arrays. As you probably know, there are dozens
of different sort algorithms, each one with its strengths and weaknesses. I found that the Shell
Sort algorithm works well in most cases, and I've prepared a generic routine that sorts any one-
dimensional array of a data type compatible with the Variant type, either in ascending or
descending order:
Sub ShellSortAny(arr As Variant, numEls As Long, descending As Boolean)
Dim index As Long, index2 As Long, firstItem As Long
Dim distance As Long, value As Variant
' Exit if it is not an array.
If VarType(arr) < vbArray Then Exit Sub
firstItem = LBound(arr)
' Find the best value for distance.
Do
distance = distance * 3 + 1
Loop Until distance > numEls
' Sort the array.
Do
distance = distance \ 3
For index = distance + firstItem To numEls + firstItem - 1
value = arr(index)
index2 = index
Do While (arr(index2 - distance) > value) Xor descending
arr(index2) = arr(index2 - distance)
index2 = index2 - distance
If index2 - distance < firstItem Then Exit Do
Loop
arr(index2) = value
Next
Loop Until distance = 1
End Sub

36


Arrays of arrays in VB6 (Visual Basic 6)
While you can create two-dimensional arrays in Visual Basic, their structure isn't really flexible
for at least two reasons: All rows in the array must have the same number of elements, and you
can use ReDim Preserve to change the number of columns but you can't add new rows. The first
point is especially important because it often leads you to declare an array that's far too large for
your needs, thus allocating a lot of memory that in most cases remains largely unused. You can
solve both problems using a structure known as an array of arrays.
The technique is conceptually simple: Since you can store an array in a Variant variable, you can
build an array of Variants, where each item holds an array. Each subarraya row of this pseudo-
arraycan hold a different number of elements, and you don't need to use more memory than is
strictly necessary.

Here's an example, based on an imaginary PIM (Personal Information Manager) program. In this
program, you need to keep track of a list of appointments for each day of the year. The simplest
solution would be to use an array in which each row corresponds to a day in the year and each
column to a possible appointment. (For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that each
appointment's data can be held in a string.)
ReDim apps(1 To 366, 1 To MAX_APPOINTMENTS) As String
Of course, you now have the problem of setting a reasonable value for the
MAX_APPOINTMENTS symbolic constant. It should be high enough to account for all possible
appointments in a day but not too high because you might be wasting a lot of memory without
any real reason. Let's see how the array of arrays technique can help us save memory without
posing any artificial limit to your application:
' A module-level variable
Dim apps(1 To 366) As Variant
37

' Add an appointment for a given day.
Sub AddNewAppointment(day As Integer, description As String)
Dim arr As Variant
If IsEmpty(apps(day)) Then
' This is the first appointment for this day.
apps(day) = Array(description)
Else
' Add the appointment to those already scheduled.
arr = apps(day)
ReDim Preserve arr(0 To UBound(arr) + 1) As Variant
arr(UBound(arr)) = description
apps(day) = arr
End If
End Sub
' Extract all the appointments for a given day.
Sub ListAppointments(day As Integer, lst As ListBox)
Dim i As Long
For i = 0 To UBound(apps(1))
lst.AddItem apps(1)(i)
Next
End Sub
In this example, I kept the code as simple as possible and used an array of Variant arrays. You
could save even more memory if each row of this array were built using an array of a more
specific data type (String, in this case). Note the special syntax used to address an item in an
array of arrays:
' Change the description for the Nth appointment.
apps(day)(n) = newDescription
Nothing keeps you from extending this concept further, introducing an array of arrays of arrays,
and so on. If you're dealing with arrays in which each row can vary considerably in length, this
approach is going to save you a lot of memory and, in most cases, improve your overall
performance too. A key feature of an array of arrays is that you can process entire rows of your
pseudo-array as if they were single entities. For example, you can swap them, replace them, add
and delete them, and so on.
' Move the January 1st appointments to January 2nd.
apps(2) = apps(1)
apps(1) = Empty
Finally, an important advantage of this technique is that you can add new rows without losing the
current contents of the array. (Remember that you can use ReDim Preserve on regular arrays
only to modify the number of columns, not the number of rows.)
38

' Extend the appointment book for another nonleap year.
ReDim Preserve apps(1 to UBound(apps) + 365) As Variant

User-Defined Data Types in Visual Basic 6
Variables of different data types when combined as a single variable to hold several related
informations is called a User-Defined data type.
A Type statement is used to define a user-defined type in the General declaration section of a
form or module. User-defined data types can only be private in form while in standard modules
can be public or private. An example for a user defined data type to hold the product details is as
given below.
Private Type ProductDetails
ProdID as String
ProdName as String
Price as Currency
End Type
The user defined data type can be declared with a variable using the Dim statement as in any
other variable declaration statement. An array of these user-defined data types can also be
declared. An example to consolidate these two features is given below.
Dim ElectronicGoods as ProductDetails ' One Record
Dim ElectronicGoods(10) as ProductDetails ' An array of 11 records
A User-Defined data type can be referenced in an application by using the variable name in the
procedure along with the item name in the Type block. Say, for example if the text property of a
TextBox namely text1 is to be assigned the name of the electronic good, the statement can be
written as given below.
Text1.Text = ElectronicGoods.ProdName
If the same is implemented as an array, then the statement becomes
Text1.Text = ElectronicGoods(i).ProdName
User-defined data types can also be passed to procedures to allow many related items as one
argument.
Sub ProdData( ElectronicGoods as ProductDetails)
Text1.Text = ElectronicGoods.ProdName
Text1.Text = ElectronicGoods.Price
39

End Sub


Constants, Data Type Conversion, Visual
Basic Built-in Functions
Constants
Constants are named storage locations in memory, the value of which does not change during
program Execution. They remain the same throughout the program execution. When the user
wants to use a value that never changes, a constant can be declared and created. The Const
statement is used to create a constant. Constants can be declared in local, form, module or global
scope and can be public or private as for variables. Constants can be declared as illustrated
below.
Public Const gravityconstant As Single = 9.81
Predefined Visual Basic Constants
The predefined constants can be used anywhere in the code in place of the actual numeric values.
This makes the code easier to read and write.
For example consider a statement that will set the window state of a form to be maximized.
Form1.Windowstate = 2
The same task can be performed using a Visual Basic constant
Form1.WindowState = vbMaximized
Data Type Conversion
Visual Basic functions either to convert a string into an integer or vice versa and many more
conversion functions. A complete listing of all the conversion functions offered by Visual Basic
is elucidated below.
Conversion To Function
40

Boolean Cbool
Byte Cbyte
Currency Ccur
Date Cdate
Decimals Cdec
Double CDbl
Integer Cint
Long CLng
Single CSng
String CStr
Variant Cvar
Error CVErr
A conversion function should always be placed at the right hand side of the calculation
statement.
Visual Basic Built-in Functions
Many built-in functions are offered by Visual Basic fall under various categories. These
functions are procedures that return a value. The functions fall into the following basic categories
that will be discussed in the follwing sections at length.
Date and Time Functions
Format Function
String Functions

41


Date and Time Functions in Visual Basic 6
Not only does Visual Basic let you store date and time information in the specific Date data type, it also
provides a lot of date- and time-related functions. These functions are very important in all business
applications and deserve an in-depth look. Date and Time are internally stored as numbers in Visual
Basic. The decimal points represents the time between 0:00:00 and 23:59:59 hours inclusive.
The system's current date and time can be retrieved using the Now, Date and Time functions in
Visual Basic. The Now function retrieves the date and time, while Date function retrieves only
date and Time function retrieves only the time.
To display both the date and time together a message box is displayed use the statement given
below.
MsgBox "The current date and time of the system is" & Now
Here & is used as a concatenation operator to concentrate the string and the Now function.
Selective portions of the date and time value can be extracted using the below listed functions.
Function Extracted Portion
Year ( ) Year (Now)
Month ( ) Month (Now)
Day ( ) Day (Now)
WeekDay ( ) WeekDay (Now)
Hour ( ) Hour (Now)
Minute ( ) Minute (Now)
Second ( ) Second (Now)
The calculation and conversion functions related to date and time functions are listed below.
42

Function Description
DateAdd ( ) Returns a date to which a specific interval has been added
DateDiff ( ) Returns a Long data type value specifying the interval between the
two values
DatePart ( ) Returns an Integer containing the specified part of a given date
DateValue ( ) Converts a string to a Date
TimeValue ( ) Converts a string to a time
DateSerial ( ) Returns a date for specified year, month and day
DateDiff Function
The DateDiff function returns the intervals between two dates in terms of years, months or days.
The syntax for this is given below.
DateDiff (interval, date1, date2[, firstdayofweek[, firstweekofyear]])
Format Function
The format function accepts a numeric value and converts it to a string in the format specified by
the format argument. The syntax for this is given below.
Format (expression[, format[, firstdayofweek[, firstweekofyear]]])
The Format function syntax has these parts:
Part Description
Expression Required any valid expression
format Optional. A valid named or user-defined format expression.
firstdayofweek Optional. A contant that specifies the first day of the week.
43

firstweekofyear Optional. A contant that specifies the first week of the year


Getting and Setting the Current Date and
Time
Strictly speaking, Date and Time aren't functions: They're properties. In fact, you can use them to
either retrieve the current date and time (as Date values) or assign new values to them to modify
the system settings:
Print Date & " " & Time ' Displays "8/14/98 8:35:48 P.M.".
' Set a new system date using any valid date format.
Date = "10/14/98"
Date = "October 14, 1998"
To help you compare the outcome of all date and time functions, all the examples in this section
assume that they're executed at the date and time shown in the preceding code snippet: October
17, 2008, 9:25:33 p.m.
The outdated Date$ and Time$ properties can also be used for the same task. They're String
properties, however, and therefore recognize only the mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy formats and the
hh:mm:ss and hh:mm formats, respectively. For this reason, it's usually better to use the new $-
less functions.
The Now function returns a Date value that contains the current date and time:
Print Now ' Displays "10/17/2008 9:25:33 P.M.".
But the time-honored Timer function returns the number of seconds elapsed from midnight and
is more accurate than Now because the Timer function includes fractional parts of seconds. (The
actual accuracy depends on the system.) This function is often used for benchmarking a portion
of code:
StartTime = Timer
' Insert the code to be benchmarked here.
Print Timer - StartTime
The preceding code suffers from some inaccuracy: The StartTime variable might be assigned
when the system tick is about to expire, so your routine could appear to take longer than it
actually does. Here's a slightly better approach:
44

StartTime = NextTimerTick
' Insert the code to be benchmarked here.
Print Timer _ StartTime
' Wait for the current timer tick to elapse.
Function NextTimerTick() As Single
Dim t As Single
t = Timer
Do: Loop While t = Timer
NextTimerTick = Timer
End Function
If you're using the Timer function in production code, you should be aware that it's reset at
midnight, so you always run the risk of introducing unlikely but potentially serious errors. Try to
spot the bug in this routine, which adds a CPU-independent pause in your code:
' WARNING: this procedure has a bug.
Sub BuggedPause(seconds As Integer)
Dim start As Single
start = Timer
Do: Loop Until Timer _ start >= seconds
End Sub
The bug manifests itself very rarelyfor example, if the program asks for a 2-second pause at
11:59:59 p.m. Even if this probability is small, the effect of this minor bug is devastating and
you'll have to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to kill your compiled application. Here's a way to work around
this issue:
' The correct version of the procedure
Sub Pause(seconds As Integer)
Const SECS_INDAY = 24! * 60 * 60 ' Seconds per day
Dim start As Single
start = Timer
Do: Loop Until (Timer + SECS_INDAY - start) Mod SECS_INDAY >= seconds
End Sub



Building and Extracting Date and Time
Values - VB6 Date & Time
45

There are many ways to assemble a Date value. For example, you can use a Date constant, such
as the following:
StartDate = #10/17/2008 9:25:33 P.M.#
but more often you'll build a Date value using one of the many functions that VBA gives you.
The DateSerial function builds a Date value from its year/month/day components; similarly, the
TimeSerial function builds a Time value from its hour/minute/second components:
Print DateSerial(2008, 10, 17) ' Displays "10/17/2008"
Print TimeSerial(12, 20, 30) ' Displays "12:20:30 P.M."
' Note that they don't raise errors with invalid arguments.
Print DateSerial(2008, 4, 31) ' Displays "5/1/2008"
The DateSerial function is also useful for determining indirectly whether a particular year is a
leap year:
Function IsLeapYear(year As Integer) As Boolean
' Are February 29 and March 1 different dates?
IsLeapYear = DateSerial(year, 2, 29) <> DateSerial(year, 3, 1)
End Function
The DateValue and TimeValue functions return the date or time portions of their argument,
which can be a string or a Date expression:
' The date a week from now
Print DateValue(Now + 7) ' Displays "10/17/2008"
A bunch of VBA functions let you extract date and time information from a Date expression or
variable. The Day, Month, and Year functions return date values, whereas the Hour, Minute, and
Second functions return time values:
' Get information about today's date.
y = Year(Now): m = Month(Now): d = Day(Now)
' These functions also support any valid date format.
Print Year("10/17/2008 9:25:33 P.M.") ' Displays "2008"
The Weekday function returns a number in the range 1 through 7, which corresponds to the day
of the week of a given Date argument:
Print Weekday("10/17/2008") ' Displays "6" (= vbFriday)
The Weekday function returns 1 when the date is the first day of the week. This function is
locale aware, which means that under different localizations of Microsoft Windows it could
consider the first day of the week to be different from vbSunday. In most cases, this condition
doesn't affect the structure of your code. But if you want to be sure that 1 means Sunday, 2
46

means Monday, and so on, you can force the function to return a consistent value under all
Windows systems, as follows:
Print Weekday(Now, vbSunday)
Although using the optional second argument forces the function to return the correct value, it
doesn't change the system localization. If you next call the Weekday function without the second
argument, it will still consider the first day of the week to be what it was before.
Finally you can extract any date and time information from a Date value or expression using the
DatePart function, for which the syntax is
Result = DatePart(Interval, Date, [FirstDayOfWeek], [FirstWeekOfYear])
You'll rarely need to resort to this function because you can do most of your calculations using
the other functions I've shown you so far. In two cases, however, this function is really useful:
' The quarter we are in
Print DatePart("q", Now) ' Displays "3"
' The week number we are in (# of weeks since Jan 1st)
Print DatePart("ww", Now) ' Displays "33"
The first argument can be one of the String constants listed in the following table. For more
information about the two optional arguments, see the description of the DateAdd function in the
next section.
Possible values for the interval argument in DatePart, DateAdd, and DateDiff functions.
Setting Description
"yyyy" Year
"q" Quarter
"m" Month
"y" Day of the year (same as d)
"d" Day
"w" Weekday
"ww" Week
"h" Hour
"n" Minute
"s" Second


47

Date Arithmetic - VB6 Date & Time
In most cases, you don't need any special functions to perform date arithmetic. All you need to
know is that the integer part in a Date variable holds the date information, and the fractional part
holds the time information:
' 2 days and 12 hours from now
Print Now + 2 + #12:00# ' Displays "8/17/2008 8:35:48 A.M."
For more sophisticated date math, you can use the DateAdd function, for which the syntax is the
following:
NewDate = DateAdd(interval, number, date)
The interval is a string that indicates a date or time unit (see table below), number is the number
of units you are adding, and date is the starting date. You can use this function to add and
subtract date and time values:
' The date three months from now
Print DateAdd("m", 3, Now) ' Displays "11/14/2008 8:35:48 P.M."
' One year ago (automatically accounts for leap years)
Print DateAdd("yyyy", -1, Now) ' Displays "8/14/2007 8:35:48 P.M."
' The number of months since Jan 30, 2008
Print DateDiff("m", #1/30/2008#, Now) ' Displays "7"
' The number of days since Jan 30, 2008 _ you can use "d" or "y".
Print DateDiff("y", #1/30/2008#, Now) ' Displays "196"
' The number of entire weeks since Jan 30, 2008
Print DateDiff("w", #1/30/2008#, Now) ' Displays "28"
' The number of weekends before 21st century - value <0 means
' future dates.
' Note: use "ww" to return the number of Sundays in the date interval.
Print DateDiff("ww", #1/1/2000#, Now) ' Displays "-72"
When you have two dates and you want to evaluate the difference between themthat is, the
time elapsed between one date and the nextyou should use the DateDiff function, for which
the syntax is
Result = DateDiff(interval, startdate, enddate _
[, FirstDayOfWeek[, FirstWeekOfYear]])
where interval has the meaning shown in the previous page Building and Extracting Date and
Time Values's table, FirstDayOfWeek is an optional argument that you can use to specify which
weekday should be considered as the first day of the week (you can use the constants vbSunday,
vbMonday, and so on), and FirstWeekOfYear is another optional argument that lets you specify
which week should be considered as the first week of the year.
48

Possible values for the FirstWeekOfYear argument in the DateDiff function.
Constant Value Description
vbUseSystem 0 Use the NLS API setting.
vbFirstJan1 1 The first week is the one that includes January 1. (This is
the default value for this setting.)
vbFirstFourDays 2 The first week is the first one that has at least four days in
the new year.
vbFirstFullWeek 3 This first week is the first one that's completely contained in
the new year.


Working with controls in Visual Basic 6
This lesson concentrates on Visual Basic controls and the ways of creating and implementing
the. It also helps us to understand the concept of Control Arrays. Controls are used to recieve
user input and display output and has its own set of properties, methods and events. Let us
discuss few of these controls in this lesson.
Creating and Using Controls
A control is an object that can be drawn on a Form object to enable or enhance user interaction with an
application. Controls have properties that define aspects their appearance, such as position, size and
colour, and aspects of their behavior, such as their response to the user input. They can respond to
events initiated by the user or set off by the system. For instance, a code could be written in a
CommandButton control's click event procedure that would load a file or display a result.
In addition to properties and events, methods can also be used to manipulate controls from code.
For instance, the move method can be used with some controls to change their location and size.
Most of the controls provide choices to users that can be in the form of OptionButton or
CheckBox controls, ListBox entries or ScrollBars to select a value. Let us discuss these controls
by means of a few simple applications in the following lessons.
Classification of Controls
Visual Basic cojntrols are broadly classified as standard controls, ActiveX controls and
insertable objects. Standard controls such as CommandButton, Label and Frame controls are
contained inside .EXE file and are always included in the ToolBox which cannot be removed.
ActiveX controls exist as separate files with either .VBX or .OCX extension. They include
49

specialized controls such as;
MSChart control
The Communications control
The Animation control
The ListView control
An ImageList control
The Multimedia control
The Internet Transfer control
The WinSock control
The TreeView control
The SysInfo control
The Picture Clip control
Some of these objects support OLE Automation, which allow programming another application's
object from within Visual Basic application.
I would like to stress that knowing how and when to set the objects' properties is very important
as it can help you to write a good program or you may fail to write a good program. So, I advice
you to spend a lot of time playing with the objects' properties
Here are some important points about setting up the properties
You should set the Caption Property of a control clearly so that a user knows what to do
with that command. For example, in the calculator program, all the captions of the
command buttons such as +, - , MC, MR are commonly found in an ordinary calculator, a
user should have no problem in manipulating the buttons.
A lot of programmers like to use a meaningful name for the Name Property may be
because it is easier for them to write and read the event procedure and easier to debug or
modify the programs later. However, it is not a must to do that as long as you label your
objects clearly and use comments in the program whenever you feel necessary
One more important property is whether the control is enabled or not
Finally, you must also considering making the control visible or invisible at runtime, or
when should it become visible or invisible
TabIndex property of Controls
Visual Basic uses the TabIndex property to determine the control that would receive the focus
next when a tab key is pressed. Every time a tab key is pressed, Visual Basic looks at the value
of the TabIndex for the control that has focus and then it scans through the controls searching for
the next highest TabIndex number. When there are no more controls with higher TabIndex value,
Visual Basic starts all over again with 0 and looks for the first control with TabIndex of 0 or
higher that can accept keyboard input.
By default, Visual Basic assigns a tab order to control as we draw the controls on the Form,
except for Menu, Timer, Data, Image, Line and Shape controls, which are not included in tab
50

order. At run time, invisible or disabled controls also cannot receive the focus although a
TabIndex value is given. Setting the TabIndex property of controls is compulsory in
development environment.
Using TextBox Control In Visual Basic 6
TextBox controls offer a natural way for users to enter a value in your program. For this reason,
they tend to be the most frequently used controls in the majority of Windows applications.
TextBox controls, which have a great many properties and events, are also among the most
complex intrinsic controls. In this section, I guide you through the most useful properties of
TextBox controls and show how to solve some of the problems that you're likely to encounter.
Setting properties to a TextBox
Text can be entered into the text box by assigning the necessary string to the text property
of the control
If the user needs to display multiple lines of text in a TextBox, set the MultiLine property
to True
To customize the scroll bar combination on a TextBox, set the ScrollBars property.
Scroll bars will always appear on the TextBox when it's MultiLine property is set to True
and its ScrollBars property is set to anything except None(0)
If you set the MultilIne property to True, you can set the alignment using the Alignment
property. The test is left-justified by default. If the MultiLine property is et to False, then
setting the Alignment property has no effect.
Run-Time Properties of a TextBox control
The Text property is the one you'll reference most often in code, and conveniently it's the default
property for the TextBox control. Three other frequently used properties are these:
The SelStart property sets or returns the position of the blinking caret (the insertion
point where the text you type appears). Note that the blinking cursor inside TextBox and
other controls is named caret, to distinguish it from the cursor (which is implicitly the
mouse cursor). When the caret is at the beginning of the contents of the TextBox control,
SelStart returns 0; when it's at the end of the string typed by the user, SelStart returns the
value Len(Text). You can modify the SelStart property to programmatically move the
caret.
The SelLength property returns the number of characters in the portion of text that has
been highlighted by the user, or it returns 0 if there's no highlighted text. You can assign
a nonzero value to this property to programmatically select text from code. Interestingly,
you can assign to this property a value larger than the current text's length without raising
a run-time error.
The SelText property sets or returns the portion of the text that's currently selected, or it
returns an empty string if no text is highlighted. Use it to directly retrieve the highlighted
text without having to query Text, SelStart, and SelLength properties. What's even more
51

interesting is that you can assign a new value to this property, thus replacing the current
selection with your own. If no text is currently selected, your string is simply inserted at
the current caret position.
When you want to append text to a TextBox control, you should use the following code (instead
of using the concatenation operator) to reduce flickering and improve performance:
Text1.SelStart = Len(Text1.Text)
Text1.SelText = StringToBeAdded
One of the typical operations you could find yourself performing with these properties is
selecting the entire contents of a TextBox control. You often do it when the caret enters the field
so that the user can quickly override the existing value with a new one, or start editing it by
pressing any arrow key:
Private Sub Text1_GotFocus()
Text1.SelStart = 0
' A very high value always does the trick.
Text1.SelLength = 9999
End Sub
Always set the SelStart property first and then the SelLength or SelText properties. When you
assign a new value to the SelStart property, the other two are automatically reset to 0 and an
empty string respectively, thus overriding your previous settings.
The selected text can be copied to the Clipboard by using SelText:
Clipboard.SelText text, [format]
In the above syntax, text is the text that has to be placed into the Clipboard, and format has three
possible values.
1. VbCFLink - conversation information
2. VbCFRTF - Rich Text Format
3. VbCFText - Text
We can get text from the clipboard using the GetText() function this way:
Clipboard.GetText ([format])
The following Figure summarizes the common TextBox control's properties and methods.
Property/ Method Description


52

Properties
Enabled specifies whether user can interact with this control or not
Index Specifies the control array index
Locked
If this control is set to True user can use it else if this control is set to false
the control cannot be used
MaxLength
Specifies the maximum number of characters to be input. Default value is
set to 0 that means user can input any number of characters
MousePointer
Using this we can set the shape of the mouse pointer when over a
TextBox
Multiline
By setting this property to True user can have more than one line in the
TextBox
PasswordChar This is to specify mask character to be displayed in the TextBox
ScrollBars

This to set either the vertical scrollbars or horizontal scrollbars to make
appear in the TextBox. User can also set it to both vertical and horizontal.
This property is used with the Multiline property.
Text Specifies the text to be displayed in the TextBox at runtime
ToolTipIndex This is used to display what text is displayed or in the control
Visible
By setting this user can make the Textbox control visible or invisible at
runtime

Method

SetFocus Transfers focus to the TextBox

Event procedures

Change Action happens when the TextBox changes
Click Action happens when the TextBox is clicked
53

GotFocus Action happens when the TextBox receives the active focus
LostFocus Action happens when the TextBox loses it focus
KeyDown Called when a key is pressed while the TextBox has the focus
KeyUp Called when a key is released while the TextBox has the focus


Trapping Keyboard Activity - Visual Basic 6
TextBox Control
TextBox controls support KeyDown, KeyPress, and KeyUp standard events. One thing that you
will often do is prevent the user from entering invalid keys. A typical example of where this
safeguard is needed is a numeric field, for which you need to filter out all nondigit keys:
Private Sub Text1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
Select Case KeyAscii
Case Is < 32 ' Control keys are OK.
Case 48 To 57 ' This is a digit.
Case Else ' Reject any other key.
KeyAscii = 0
End Select
End Sub
You should never reject keys whose ANSI code is less than 32, a group that includes important
keys such as Backspace, Escape, Tab, and Enter. Also note that a few control keys will make
your TextBox beep if it doesn't know what to do with themfor example, a single-line TextBox
control doesn't know what to do with an Enter key.
Don't assume that the KeyPress event will trap all control keys under all conditions. For
example, the KeyPress event can process the Enter key only if there's no CommandButton
control on the form whose Default property is set to True. If the form has a default push button,
the effect of pressing the Enter key is clicking on that button. Similarly, no Escape key goes
through this event if there's a Cancel button on the form. Finally, the Tab control key is trapped
by a KeyPress event only if there isn't any other control on the form whose TabStop property is
True.
You can use the KeyDown event procedure to allow users to increase and decrease the current
value using Up and Down arrow keys, as you see here:
54

Private Sub Text1_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
Select Case KeyCode
Case vbKeyUp
Text1.Text = CDbl(Text1.Text) + 1
Case vbKeyDown
Text1.Text = CDbl(Text1.Text) -1
End Select
End Sub
There's a bug in the implementation of TextBox ready-only controls. When the Locked property
is set to True, the Ctrl+C key combination doesn't correctly copy the selected text to the
Clipboard, and you must manually implement this capability by writing code in the KeyPress
event procedure



Validation Routines for Numbers - Visual
Basic 6 TextBox Control
Although trapping invalid keys in the KeyPress or KeyDown event procedures seems a great
idea at first, when you throw your application to inexperienced users you soon realize that there
are many ways for them to enter invalid data. Depending on what you do with this data, your
application can come to an abrupt end with a run-time error ormuch worseit can appear to
work correctly while it delivers bogus results. What you really need is a bullet-proof method to
trap invalid values.
Before I offer you a decent solution to the problem, let me explain why you can't rely solely on
trapping invalid keys for your validation chores. What if the user pastes an invalid value from the
clipboard? Well, you might say, let's trap the Ctrl+V and Shift+Ins key combinations to prevent
the user from doing that! Unfortunately, Visual Basic's TextBox controls offer a default edit
menu that lets users perform any clipboard operation by simply right-clicking on them.
Fortunately, there's a way around this problem: Instead of trapping a key before it gets to the
TextBox control, you trap its effect in the Change event and reject it if it doesn't pass your test.
But this makes the structure of the code a little more complex than you might anticipate:
' Form-level variables
Dim saveText As String
Dim saveSelStart As Long
Private Sub Text1_GotFocus()
55

' Save values when the control gets the focus.
saveText = Text1.Text
saveSelStart = Text1.SelStart
End Sub
Private Sub Text1_Change()
' Avoid nested calls.
Static nestedCall As Boolean
If nestedCall Then Exit Sub
' Test the control's value here.
If IsNumeric(Text1.Text) Then
' If value is OK, save values.
saveText = Text1.Text
saveSelStart = Text1.SelStart
Else
' Prepare to handle a nested call.
nestedCall = True
Text1.Text = saveText
nestedCall = False
Text1.SelStart = saveSelStart
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Text1_KeyUp(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
saveSelStart = Text1.SelStart
End Sub
Private Sub Text1_MouseDown(Button As Integer, _
Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
saveSelStart = Text1.SelStart
End Sub
Private Sub Text1_MouseMove(Button As Integer, _
Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
saveSelStart = Text1.SelStart
End Sub
If the control's value doesn't pass your tests in the Change event procedure, you must restore its
previous valid value; this action recursively fires a Change event, and you must prepare yourself
to neutralize this nested call. You might wonder why you also need to trap the KeyUp,
MouseDown, and MouseMove events: The reason is that you always need to keep track of the
last valid position for the insertion point because the end user could move it using arrow keys or
the mouse.
The preceding code snippet uses the IsNumeric function to trap invalid data. You should be
aware that this function isn't robust enough for most real-world applications. For example, the
IsNumeric function incorrectly considers these strings as valid numbers:
56

123,,,123
345-
$1234 ' What if it isn't a currency field?
2.4E10 ' What if I don't want to support scientific notation?
To cope with this issue, I have prepared an alternative function, which you can modify for your
particular purposes. (For instance, you can add support for a currency symbol or the comma as
the decimal separator.) Note that this function always returns True when it's passed a null string,
so you might need to perform additional tests if the user isn't allowed to leave the field blank:
Function CheckNumeric(text As String, DecValue As Boolean) As Boolean
Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To Len(text)
Select Case Mid$(text, i, 1)
Case "0" To "9"
Case "-", "+"
' Minus/plus signs are only allowed as leading chars.
If i > 1 Then Exit Function
Case "."
' Exit if decimal values not allowed.
If Not DecValue Then Exit Function
' Only one decimal separator is allowed.
If InStr(text, ".") < i Then Exit Function
Case Else
' Reject all other characters.
Exit Function
End Select
Next
CheckNumeric = True
End Function
If your TextBox controls are expected to contain other types of data, you might be tempted to
reuse the same validation framework I showed you previouslyincluding all the code in the
GotFocus, Change, KeyUp, MouseDown, and MouseMove event proceduresand replace only
the call to IsNumeric with a call to your custom validation routine. Things aren't as simple as
they appear at first, however. Say that you have a date field: Can you use the IsDate function to
validate it from within the Change event? The answer is, of course, no. In fact, as you enter the
first digit of your date value, IsDate returns False and the routine therefore prevents you from
entering the remaining characters, and so preventing you from entering any value.
This example explains why a key-level validation isn't always the best answer to your validation
needs. For this reason, most Visual Basic programmers prefer to rely on field-level validation
and test the values only when the user moves the input focus to another field in the form. I
explain field-level validation in the next section.

57

The CausesValidation Property and the
Validate Event - Visual Basic 6 TextBox
Control
Visual Basic 6 has finally come up with a solution for most of the validation issues that have
afflicted Visual Basic developers for years. As you'll see in a moment, the Visual Basic 6
approach is simple and clean; it really astonishes me that it took six language versions to deliver
such a lifesaver. The keys to the new validation features are the Validate event and the
CausesValidation property. They work together as follows: When the input focus leaves a
control, Visual Basic checks the CausesValidation property of the control that is about to receive
the focus. If this property is True, Visual Basic fires the Validate event in the control that's about
to lose the focus, thus giving the programmer a chance to validate its contents and, if necessary,
cancel the focus shift.
Let's try a practical example. Imagine that you have five controls on a form: a required field (a
TextBox control, txtRequired, that can't contain an empty string), a numeric field, txtNumeric,
that expects a value in the range 1 through 1000, and three push buttons: OK, Cancel, and Help.
(See the figure below.) You don't want to perform validation if the user presses the Cancel or
Help buttons, so you set their CausesValidation properties to False. The default value for this
property is True, so you don't have to modify it for the other controls. Run the sample program
on the companion CD, type something in the required TextBox, and then move to the second
field. Because the second field's CausesValidation property is True, Visual Basic fires a Validate
event in the first TextBox control:
Private Sub txtRequired_Validate(Cancel As Boolean)
' Check that field is not empty.
If txtRequired.Text = "" Then
MsgBox "Please enter something here", vbExclamation
Cancel = True
End If
End Sub
If the Cancel parameter is set to True, Visual Basic cancels the user's action and takes the input
focus back on the txtRequired control: No other GotFocus and LostFocus events are generated.
On the other hand, if you typed something in the required field, the focus will now be on the
second field (the numeric text box). Try clicking on the Help or Cancel buttons: No Validate
event will fire this time because you set the CausesValidation property for each of these controls
to False. Instead, click on the OK button to execute the Validate event of the numeric field,
where you can check it for invalid characters and valid range.
58


A demonstration program that lets you experiment with the new Visual Basic Validate features
Private Sub txtNumeric_Validate(Cancel As Boolean)
If Not IsNumeric(txtNumeric.Text) Then
Cancel = True
ElseIf CDbl(txtNumeric.Text) < 1 Or CDbl(txtNumeric.Text) > 1000 Then
Cancel = True
End If
If Cancel Then
MsgBox "Please enter a number in range [1-1000]", vbExclamation
End If
End Sub
In some circumstances, you might want to programmatically validate the control that has the
focus without waiting for the user to move the input focus. You can do it with the form's
ValidateControls method, which forces the Validate event of the control that has the input focus.
Typically, you do it when the user closes the form:
Private Sub Form_QueryUnload(Cancel As Integer, UnloadMode As Integer)
' You can't close this form without validating the current field.
If UnloadMode = vbFormControlMenu Then
On Error Resume Next
ValidateControls
If Err = 380 Then
' The current field failed validation.
Cancel = True
End If
End If
End Sub
Checking the UnloadMode parameter is important; otherwise, your application will mistakenly
execute a ValidateControls method when the user clicks on the Cancel button. Note that
ValidateControls returns an error 380 if Cancel was set in the Validate event procedure of the
control that had the focus.
59

Visual Basic 6's validation scheme has two flaws, though. If your form has a CommandButton
whose Default property is set to True, pressing the Enter key while the input focus is on another
control results in a click on the CommandButton control but doesn't fire a Validate event, even if
the CausesValidation property of the CommandButton control is set to True. The only way to
solve this problem is to invoke the ValidateControls method from within the default
CommandButton control's Click event procedure.
The second flaw is that the Validate event doesn't fire when you're moving the focus from a
control whose CausesValidation property is False, even if the control that receives the focus has
its CausesValidation property set to True.
The new Visual Basic 6 validation mechanism is simple and can be implemented with little
effort. But it isn't the magic answer to all your validation needs. In fact, this technique can only
enforce field-level validation; it does nothing for record-level validation. In other words, it
ensures that one particular field is correct, not that all fields in the form contain valid data. To see
what I mean, run the demonstration program, enter a string in the first field, and press Alt+F4 to
close the form. Your code won't raise an error, even if the second field doesn't contain a valid
number! Fortunately, it doesn't take much to create a generic routine that forces each control on
the form to validate itself:
Private Sub Form_QueryUnload(Cancel As Integer, UnloadMode As Integer)
' You can't close this form without validating all the fields on it.
If UnloadMode = vbFormControlMenu Then
On Error Resume Next
Dim ctrl As Control
' Give the focus to each control on the form, and then
' validate it.
For Each ctrl In Controls
Err.Clear
ctrl.SetFocus
If Err = 0 Then
' Don't validate controls that can't receive input focus.
ValidateControls
If Err = 380 Then
' Validation failed, refuse to close.
Cancel = True: Exit Sub
End If
End If
Next
End If
End Sub
The CausesValidation property and the Validate event are shared by all the intrinsic controls that
are able to get the focus as well as by most external ActiveX controls, even those not specifically
written for Visual Basic. This is possible because they are extender features, provided by the
Visual Basic runtime to all the controls placed on a form's surface.
60

One Visual Basic operator has great potential when it comes time to validate complex strings but
is neglected by most Visual Basic developers. Let's say you have a product code that consists of
two uppercase characters followed by exactly three digits. You might think that you need some
complex string functions to validate such a string until you try the Like operator, as follows:
If "AX123" Like "[A-Z][A-Z]###" Then Print "OK"


Auto-Tabbing Fields and Formatting Text -
Visual Basic 6 TextBox Control
Auto-Tabbing Fields
Users aren't usually delighted to spend all their time at the keyboard. Your job as a programmer
is to make their jobs easier, and so you should strive to streamline their everyday work as much
as possible. One way to apply this concept is to provide them with auto-tabbing fields, which are
fields that automatically advance users to the next field in the Tab order as soon as they enter a
valid value. Most often, auto-tabbing fields are those TextBox controls whose MaxLength
property has been assigned a non-null value. Implementing such an auto-tabbing field in Visual
Basic is straightforward:
Private Sub Text1_Change()
If Len(Text1.Text) = Text1.MaxLength Then SendKeys "{Tab}"
End Sub
The trick, as you see, is to have your program provide the Tab key on behalf of your user. In
some cases, this simple approach doesn't workfor example, when you paste a long string into
the field. You might want to write code that works around this and other shortcomings. Auto-
tabbing is a nice feature but not vital to the application, so whether you write a workaround or
not isn't a real problem in most cases.
Formatting Text
Many business applications let you enter data in one format and then display it in another. For
example, numeric values can be formatted with thousand separators and a fixed number of
decimal digits. Currency values might have a $ symbol (or whatever your national currency
symbol is) automatically inserted. Phone numbers can be formatted with dashes to split into
groups of digits. Credit-card numbers can be made more readable with embedded spaces. Dates
can be shown in long-date format ("July 22, 2007"). And so on.
The LostFocus event is an ideal occasion to format the contents of a TextBox control as soon as
61

the input focus leaves it. In most cases, you can perform all your formatting chores using the
Format function. For example, you can add thousand separators to a numeric value in the
txtNumber control using this code:
Private Sub txtNumber_LostFocus()
On Error Resume Next
txtNumber.Text = Format(CDbl(txtNumber.Text), _
"#,###,###,##0.######")
End Sub
When the field regains the focus, you'll want to get rid of those thousand separators. You can do
it easily using the CDbl function:
Private Sub txtNumber_GotFocus()
' On Error is necessary to account for empty fields.
On Error Resume Next
txtNumber.Text = CDbl(txtNumber.Text)
End Sub
In some cases, however, formatting and unformatting a value isn't that simple. For example, you
can format a Currency value to add parentheses around negative numbers, but there's no built-in
Visual Basic function able to return a string formatted in that way to its original condition. Fear
not, because nothing prevents you from creating your own formatting and unformatting routines.
I have built two general-purpose routines for you to consider.
The FilterString routine filters out all unwanted characters in a string:
Function FilterString(Text As String, validChars As String) As String
Dim i As Long, result As String
For i = 1 To Len(Text)
If InStr(validChars, Mid$(Text, i, 1)) Then
result = result & Mid$(Text, i, 1)
End If
Next
FilterString = result
End Function
FilterNumber builds on FilterString to strip down all formatting characters in a number and can
also trim trailing decimal zeros:
Function FilterNumber(Text As String, TrimZeros As Boolean) As String
Dim decSep As String, i As Long, result As String
' Retrieve the decimal separator symbol.
decSep = Format$(0.1, ".")
' Use FilterString for most of the work.
result = FilterString(Text, decSep & "-0123456789")
62

' Do the following only if there is a decimal part and the
' user requested that nonsignificant digits be trimmed.
If TrimZeros And InStr(Text, decSep) > 0 Then
For i = Len(result) To 1 Step -1
Select Case Mid$(result, i, 1)
Case decSep
result = Left$(result, i - 1)
Exit For
Case "0"
result = Left$(result, i - 1)
Case Else
Exit For
End Select
Next
End If
FilterNumber = result
End Function
The feature I like most in FilterNumber is that it's locale-independent. It works equally well on
both sides of the Atlantic ocean (and on other continents, as well.) Instead of hard-coding the
decimal separator character in the code, the routine determines it on the fly, using the Visual
Basic for Applications (VBA) Format function. Start thinking internationally now, and you won't
have a nervous breakdown when you have to localize your applications in German, French, and
Japanese.
The Format function lets you retrieve many locale-dependent characters and separators.
Format$(0.1, ".") ' Decimal separator
Format$(1, ",") ' Thousand separator
Mid$(Format(#1/1/99#, "short date"), 2, 1) ' Date separator
You can also determine whether the system uses dates in "mm/dd/yy" (U.S.) format or
"dd/mm/yy" (European) format, using this code:
If Left$(Format$("12/31/1999", "short date"), 2) = 12 Then
' mm/dd/yy format
Else
' dd/mm/yyyy format
End If
There's no direct way to determine the currency symbol, but you can derive it by analyzing the
result of this function:
Format$(0, "currency") ' Returns "$0.00" in US
63

It isn't difficult to write a routine that internally uses the information I've just given you to extract
the currency symbol as well as its default position (before or after the number) and the default
number of decimal digits in currency values. Remember, in some countries the currency symbol
is actually a string of two or more characters.
To illustrate these concepts in action, I've built a simple demonstration program that shows how
you can format numbers, currency values, dates, phone numbers, and credit-card numbers when
exiting a field, and how you can remove that formatting from the result when the input focus
reenters the TextBox control. Follwoing figure shows the formatted results.
Private Sub txtNumber_GotFocus()
' Filter out nondigit chars and trailing zeros.
On Error Resume Next
txtNumber.Text = FilterNumber(txtNumber.Text, True)
End Sub
Private Sub txtNumber_LostFocus()
' Format as a number, grouping thousand digits.
On Error Resume Next
txtNumber.Text = Format(CDbl(txtNumber.Text), _
"#,###,###,##0.######")
End Sub
Private Sub txtCurrency_GotFocus()
' Filter out nondigit chars and trailing zeros.
' Restore standard text color.
On Error Resume Next
txtCurrency.Text = FilterNumber(txtCurrency.Text, True)
txtCurrency.ForeColor = vbWindowText
End Sub
Private Sub txtCurrency_LostFocus()
On Error Resume Next
' Show negative values as red text.
If CDbl(txtCurrency.Text) < 0 Then txtCurrency.ForeColor = vbRed
' Format currency, but don't use parentheses for negative numbers.
' (FormatCurrency is a new VB6 string function.)
txtCurrency.Text = FormatCurrency(txtCurrency.Text, , , vbFalse)
End Sub
Private Sub txtDate_GotFocus()
' Prepare to edit in short-date format.
On Error Resume Next
txtDate.Text = Format$(CDate(txtDate.Text), "short date")
End Sub
Private Sub txtDate_LostFocus()
' Convert to long-date format upon exit.
On Error Resume Next
64

txtDate.Text = Format$(CDate(txtDate.Text), "d MMMM yyyy")
End Sub
Private Sub txtPhone_GotFocus()
' Trim embedded dashes.
txtPhone.Text = FilterString(txtPhone.Text, "0123456789")
End Sub
Private Sub txtPhone_LostFocus()
' Add dashes if necessary.
txtPhone.Text = FormatPhoneNumber(txtPhone.Text)
End Sub
Private Sub txtCreditCard_GotFocus()
' Trim embedded spaces.
txtCreditCard.Text = FilterNumber(txtCreditCard.Text, True)
End Sub
Private Sub txtCreditCard_LostFocus()
' Add spaces if necessary.
txtCreditCard.Text = FormatCreditCard(txtCreditCard.Text)
End Sub
Instead of inserting the code that formats phone numbers and credit-card numbers right in the
LostFocus event procedures, I built two distinct routines, which can be more easily reused in
other applications, as shown in the code below.
Function FormatPhoneNumber(Text As String) As String
Dim tmp As String
If Text <> "" Then
' First get rid of all embedded dashes, if any.
tmp = FilterString(Text, "0123456789")
' Then reinsert them in the correct position.
If Len(tmp) <= 7 Then
FormatPhoneNumber = Format$(tmp, "!@@@-@@@@")
Else
FormatPhoneNumber = Format$(tmp, "!@@@-@@@-@@@@")
End If
End If
End Function
Function FormatCreditCard(Text As String) As String
Dim tmp As String
If Text <> "" Then
' First get rid of all embedded spaces, if any.
tmp = FilterNumber(Text, False)
' Then reinsert them in the correct position.
FormatCreditCard = Format$(tmp, "!@@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@")
65

End If
End Function
Unfortunately, there isn't any way to create locale-independent routines that can format any
phone number anywhere in the world. But by grouping all your formatting routines in one
module, you can considerably speed up your work if and when it's time to convert your code for
another locale.


Multiline TextBox Controls - Visual Basic 6
TextBox Control
You create multiline TextBox controls by setting the MultiLine property to True and the
ScrollBars property to 2-Vertical or 3-Both. A vertical scroll bar causes the contents of the
control to automatically wrap when a line is too long for the control's width, so this setting is
most useful when you're creating memo fields or simple word processor-like programs. If you
have both a vertical and a horizontal scroll bar, the TextBox control behaves more like a
programmer's editor, and longer lines simply extend beyond the right border. I've never found a
decent use for the other settings of the ScrollBars property (0-None and 1-Horizontal) in a
multiline TextBox control. Visual Basic ignores the ScrollBars property if MultiLine is False.
Both these properties are read-only at run time, which means that you can't alternate between a
regular and a multiline text box, or between a word processor-like multiline field (ScrollBars =
2-Vertical) and an editorlike field (ScrollBars = 3-Both). To tell the whole truth, Visual Basic's
support for multiline TextBox controls leaves much to be desired. You can do very little with
such controls at run time, except to retrieve and set their Text properties. When you read the
contents of a multiline TextBox control, it's up to you to determine where each line of text starts
and ends. You do this with a loop that searches for carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF) pairs,
or even more easily using the new Split string function:
' Print the lines of text in Text1, labeling them with their line numbers.
Dim lines() As String, i As Integer
lines() = Split(Text1.Text, vbCrLf)
For i = 0 To UBound(lines)
Print (i + 1) & ": " & lines(i)
Next
The support offered by Visual Basic for multiline TextBox controls ends here. The language
doesn't offer any means for learning such vital information as at which point each line of text
wraps, which are the first visible line and the first visible column, which line and column the
caret is on, and so on. Moreover, you have no means of programmatically scrolling through a
66

multiline text box. The solutions to these problems require Microsoft Windows API
programming. In my opinion, however, Visual Basic should offer these features as built-in
properties and methods.
You should account for two minor issues when including one or more multiline TextBox
controls on your forms. When you enter code in a word processor or an editor, you expect that
the Enter key will add a newline character (more precisely, a CR-LF character pair) and that the
Tab key will insert a tab character and move the caret accordingly. Visual Basic supports these
keys, but because both of them have special meaning to Windows the support is limited: The
Enter key adds a CR-LF pair only if there isn't a default push button on the form, and the Tab
key inserts a tab character only if there aren't other controls on the form whose TabStop property
is set to True. In many circumstances, these requirements can't be met, and some of your users
will find your user interface annoying. If you can't avoid this problem, at least add a reminder to
your users that they can add new lines using the Ctrl+Enter key combination and insert tab
characters using the Ctrl+Tab key combination. Another possible approach is to set the TabStop
property to False for all the controls in the form in the multiline TextBox's GotFocus event and
to restore the original values in the LostFocus event procedure.



Label and Frame Controls in Visual Basic 6
(VB6)
Label and Frame controls have a few features in common, so it makes sense to explain them
together. First they're mostly "decorative" controls that contribute to the user interface but are
seldom used as programmable objects. In other words, you often place them on the form and
arrange their properties as your user interface needs dictate, but you rarely write code to serve
their events, generally, or manipulate their properties at run time.
Label Controls
Most people use Label controls to provide a descriptive caption and possibly an associated hot
key for other controls, such as TextBox, ListBox, and ComboBox, that don't expose the Caption
property. In most cases, you just place a Label control where you need it, set its Caption property
to a suitable string (embedding an ampersand character in front of the hot key you want to
assign), and you're done. Caption is the default property for Label controls. Be careful to set the
Label's TabIndex property so that it's 1 minus the TabIndex property of the companion control.
Other useful properties are BorderStyle(if you want the Label control to appear inside a 3D
border) and Alignment (if you want to align the caption to the right or center it on the control). In
67

most cases, the alignment depends on how the Label control relates to its companion control: for
example, if the Label control is placed to the left of its companion field, you might want to set its
Alignment property to 1-Right Justify. The value 2-Center is especially useful for stand-alone
Label controls.

Different settings for the Alignment property of Label controls.
You can insert a literal & character in a Label control's Caption property by doubling it. For
example, to see Research & Development you have to type &Research && Development. Note
that if you have multiple but isolated &s, the one that selects the hot key is the last one and all
others are ignored. This tip applies to all the controls that expose a Caption property. (The & has
no special meaning in forms' Caption properties, however.)
If the caption string is a long one, you might want to set the Label's WordWrap property to True
so that it will extend for multiple lines instead of being truncated by the right border of the
control. Alternatively, you might decide to set the AutoSize property to True and let the control
automatically resize itself to accommodate longer caption strings.
You sometimes need to modify the default value of a Label's BackStyle property. Label controls
usually cover what's already on the form's surface (other lightweight controls, output from
graphic methods, and so on) because their background is considered to be opaque. If you want to
show a character string somewhere on the form but at the same time you don't want to obscure
underlying objects, set the BackStyle property to 0-Transparent.
If you're using the Label control to display data read from elsewherefor example, a database
field or a text fileyou should set its UseMnemonics property to False. In this case, &
characters have no special meaning to the control, and so you indirectly turn off the control's hot
key capability. I mention this property because in older versions of Visual Basic, you had to
manually double each & character to make the ampersand appear in text. I don't think all
developers are aware that you can now treat ampersands like regular characters.
As I said before, you don't usually write code in Label control event procedures. This control
exposes only a subset of the events supported by other controls. For example, because Label
controls can never get the input focus, they don't support GotFocus, LostFocus, or any keyboard-
related events. In practice, you can take advantage only of their mouse events: Click, DblClick,
MouseDown, MouseMove, and MouseUp. If you're using a Label control to display data read
68

from a database, you might sometimes find it useful to write code in its Change event. A Label
control doesn't expose a specific event that tells programmers when users press its hot keys.
You can do some interesting tricks with Label controls. For example, you can use them to
provide rectangular hot spots for images loaded onto the form. To create that context-sensitive
ToolTip, I loaded the image on the form using the form's Picture property and then I placed a
Label control over the Microsoft BackOffice logo, setting its Caption property to an empty string
and the BackStyle property to 0-Transparent. These properties make the Label invisible, but it
correctly shows its ToolTip when necessary. And because it still receives all mouse events, you
can use its Click event to react to users' actions.
Frame Controls
Frame controls are similar to Label controls in that they can serve as captions for those controls
that don't have their own. Moreover, Frame controls can also (and often do) behave as containers
and host other controls. In most cases, you only need to drop a Frame control on a form and set
its Caption property. If you want to create a borderless frame, you can set its BorderStyle
property to 0-None.
Controls that are contained in the Frame control are said to be child controls. Moving a control at
design time over a Frame controlor over any other container, for that matterdoesn't
automatically make that control a child of the Frame control. After you create a Frame control,
you can create a child control by selecting the child control's icon in the Toolbox and drawing a
new instance inside the Frame's border. Alternatively, to make an existing control a child of a
Frame control, you must select the control, press Ctrl+X to cut it to the Clipboard, select the
Frame control, and press Ctrl+V to paste the control inside the Frame. If you don't follow this
procedure and you simply move the control over the Frame, the two controls remain completely
independent of each other, even if the other control appears in front of the Frame control.
Frame controls, like all container controls, have two interesting features. If you move a Frame
control, all the child controls go with it. If you make a container control disabled or invisible, all
its child controls also become disabled or invisible. You can exploit these features to quickly
change the state of a group of related controls.


VB6 CommandButton and OptionButton
Controls - Visual Basic 6
When compared to TextBox controls, these controls are really simple. Not only do they expose
relatively few properties, they also support a limited number of events, and you don't usually
write much code to manage them.
69

CommandButton Controls in VB6
Using CommandButton controls is trivial. In most cases, you just draw the control on the form's
surface, set its Caption property to a suitable string (adding an & character to associate a hot key
with the control if you so choose), and you're finished, at least with user-interface issues. To
make the button functional, you write code in its Click event procedure, as in this fragment:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
' Save data, then unload the current form.
Call SaveDataToDisk
Unload Me
End Sub
You can use two other properties at design time to modify the behavior of a CommandButton
control. You can set the Default property to True if it's the default push button for the form (the
button that receives a click when the user presses the Enter keyusually the OK or Save button).
Similarly, you can set the Cancel property to True if you want to associate the button with the
Escape key.
The only relevant CommandButton's run-time property is Value, which sets or returns the state
of the control (True if pressed, False otherwise). Value is also the default property for this type
of control. In most cases, you don't need to query this property because if you're inside a button's
Click event you can be sure that the button is being activated. The Value property is useful only
for programmatically clicking a button:
This fires the button's Click event.
Command1.Value = True
The CommandButton control supports the usual set of keyboard and mouse events (KeyDown,
KeyPress, KeyUp, MouseDown, MouseMove, MouseUp, but not the DblClick event) and also
the GotFocus and LostFocus events, but you'll rarely have to write code in the corresponding
event procedures.
Properties of a CommandButton control
To display text on a CommandButton control, set its Caption property.
An event can be activated by clicking on the CommandButton.
To set the background colour of the CommandButton, select a colour in the BackColor
property.
To set the text colour set the Forecolor property.
Font for the CommandButton control can be selected using the Font property.
To enable or disable the buttons set the Enabled property to True or False
To make visible or invisible the buttons at run time, set the Visible property to True or
False.
Tooltips can be added to a button by setting a text to the Tooltip property of the
CommandButton.
70

A button click event is handled whenever a command button is clicked. To add a click event
handler, double click the button at design time, which adds a subroutine like the one given
below.

Private Sub Command1_Click( )
..................
End Sub
OptionButton Controls in VB6
OptionButton controls are also known as radio buttons because of their shape. You always use
OptionButton controls in a group of two or more because their purpose is to offer a number of
mutually exclusive choices. Anytime you click on a button in the group, it switches to a selected
state and all the other controls in the group become unselected.
Preliminary operations for an OptionButton control are similar to those already described for
CheckBox controls. You set an OptionButton control's Caption property to a meaningful string,
and if you want you can change its Alignment property to make the control right aligned. If the
control is the one in its group that's in the selected state, you also set its Valueproperty to True.
(The OptionButton's Value property is a Boolean value because only two states are possible.)
Value is the default property for this control.
At run time, you typically query the control's Value property to learn which button in its group
has been selected. Let's say you have three OptionButton controls, named optWeekly,
optMonthly, and optYearly. You can test which one has been selected by the user as follows:
If optWeekly.Value Then
' User prefers weekly frequency.
ElseIf optMonthly.Value Then
' User prefers monthly frequency.
ElseIf optYearly.Value Then
' User prefers yearly frequency.
End If
Strictly speaking, you can avoid the test for the last OptionButton control in its group because all
choices are supposed to be mutually exclusive. But the approach I just showed you increases the
code's readability.
A group of OptionButton controls is often hosted in a Frame control. This is necessary when
there are other groups of OptionButton controls on the form. As far as Visual Basic is concerned,
all the OptionButton controls on a form's surface belong to the same group of mutually exclusive
selections, even if the controls are placed at the opposite corners of the window. The only way to
tell Visual Basic which controls belong to which group is by gathering them inside a Frame
control. Actually, you can group your controls within any control that can work as a container
PictureBox, for examplebut Frame controls are often the most reasonable choice.
71

Example
Open a new Standard EXE project and the save the Form as Option.frm and save the project as
Option.vbp.
Design the Form as per the following specifications table.
Object Property Settings
Label
Caption
Name
Enter a Number
Label1
TextBox
Text
Name
(empty)
Text1
CommandButton
Caption
Name
&Close
Command1
OptionButton
Caption
Name
&Octal
optOct
OptionButton
Caption
Name
&Hexadecimal
optHex
OptionButton
Caption
Name
&Decimal
optDec
The application responds to the following events
The change event of the TextBox reads the value and stores it in a form-level numeric
variable.
The click event of optOct button returns curretval in octal.
The click event of the optHex button curerntval in hexadecimal
The click event of the optDec button returns the decimal equivalent of the value held
currentval.
The following code is entered in the general declarations section of the Form.
Dim currentval as variant
The variable is initialized to 0 by default. The change event procedure checks to ascertain the
number system (Octal, Hexadecimal) that is in effect and then reads in the number.
72

Private Sub Text1_Change()
If optOct.Value = True Then
currentval = Val ("&O" & LTrim (Text1.Text) & "&")
Elseif optDec.value = True Then
currentval = Val (LTrim (Text1.Text) & "&")
Else
currentval = Val ("&H" & LTrim (Text1.Text) & "&")
End if
End Sub
The Val function is used to translate string to a number and can recognize Octal and
Hexadecimal strings. The LTrim function trims the leading blanks in the text. The following
code is entered in the click events of the OptionButton controls.
Private Sub optOct_Click()
Text1.Text = Oct(currentval)
End Sub
Private Sub optHex_Click()
Text1.Text = Hex(currentval)
End Sub
Private Sub optDec_Click()
Text1.Text = Format(currentval)
End Sub
The follwoing code is entered in the click event of teh Close button.
Private Sub cmdClose_Click()
Unlod Me
End Sub
The Application is run by pressing F5 or clicking on the Run icon in the tool bar. By pressing the
Exit button the program is terminated.

PictureBox and Image Controls in Visual
Basic 6
Both PictureBox and Image controls let you display an image, so let's compare them and see
when it makes sense to choose one or the other.
The PictureBox Control
73

PictureBox controls are among the most powerful and complex items in the Visual Basic
Toolbox window. In a sense, these controls are more similar to forms than to other controls. For
example, PictureBox controls support all the properties related to graphic output, including
AutoRedraw, ClipControls, HasDC, FontTransparent, CurrentX, CurrentY, and all the
Drawxxxx, Fillxxxx, and Scalexxxx properties. PictureBox controls also support all graphic
methods, such as Cls, PSet, Point, Line, and Circle and conversion methods, such as ScaleX,
ScaleY, TextWidth, and TextHeight. In other words, all the techniques that I described for forms
can also be used for PictureBox controls (and therefore won't be covered again in this section).
Loading images
Once you place a PictureBox on a form, you might want to load an image in it, which you do by
setting the Picture property in the Properties window. You can load images in many different
graphic formats, including bitmaps (BMP), device independent bitmaps (DIB), metafiles
(WMF), enhanced metafiles (EMF), GIF and JPEG compressed files, and icons (ICO and CUR).
You can decide whether a control should display a border, resetting the BorderStyle to 0-None if
necessary. Another property that comes handy in this phase is AutoSize: Set it to True and let the
control automatically resize itself to fit the assigned image.
You might want to set the Align property of a PictureBox control to something other than the 0-
None value. By doing that, you attach the control to one of the four form borders and have
Visual Basic automatically move and resize the PictureBox control when the form is resized.
PictureBox controls expose a Resize event, so you can trap it if you need to move and resize its
child controls too.
You can do more interesting things at run time. To begin with, you can programmatically load
any image in the control using the LoadPicture function:
Picture1.Picture = LoadPicture("c:\windows\setup.bmp")
and you can clear the current image using either one of the following statements:
' These are equivalent.
Picture1.Picture = LoadPicture("")
Set Picture1.Picture = Nothing
The LoadPicture function has been extended in Visual Basic 6 to support icon files containing
multiple icons. The new syntax is the following:
LoadPicture(filename, [size], [colordepth], [x], [y])
where values in square brackets are optional. If filename is an icon file, you can select a
particular icon using the size or colordepth arguments. Valid sizes are 0-vbLPSmall, 1-
vbLPLarge (system icons whose sizes depend on the video driver), 2-vbLPSmallShell, 3-
vbLPLargeShell (shell icons whose dimensions are affected by the Caption Button property as
74

set in the Appearance tab in the screen's Properties dialog box), and 4-vbLPCustom (size is
determined by x and y). Valid color depths are 0-vbLPDefault (the icon in the file that best
matches current screen settings), 1-vbLPMonochrome, 2-vbLPVGAColor (16 colors), and 3-
vbLPColor (256 colors).
You can copy an image from one PictureBox control to another by assigning the target control's
Picture property:
Picture2.Picture = Picture1.Picture
The PaintPicture method
PictureBox controls are equipped with a very powerful method that enables the programmer to
perform a wide variety of graphic effects, including zooming, scrolling, panning, tiling, flipping,
and many fading effects: This is the PaintPicture method. (This method is also exposed by form
objects, but it's most often used with PictureBox controls.) In a nutshell, this method performs a
pixel-by-pixel copy from a source control to a destination control. The complete syntax of this
method is complex and rather confusing:
DestPictBox.PaintPicture SrcPictBox.Picture, destX, destY, [destWidth], _
[destHeight], [srcX], [srcY2], [srcWidth], [srcHeight], [Opcode])
The only required arguments are the source PictureBox control's Picture property and the
coordinates inside the destination control where the image must be copied. The destX / destY
arguments are expressed in the ScaleMode of the destination control; by varying them, you can
make the image appear exactly where you want. For example, if the source PictureBox control
contains a bitmap 3000 twips wide and 2000 twips tall, you can center this image on the
destination control with this command:
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, (picDest.ScaleWidth - 3000) / 2, _
(picDest.ScaleHeight - 2000) / 2
In general, Visual Basic doesn't provide a way to determine the size of a bitmap loaded into a
PictureBox control. But you can derive this information if you set the control's AutoSize
property to True and then read the control's ScaleWidth and ScaleHeight properties. If you don't
want to resize a visible control just to learn the dimensions of a bitmap, you can load it into an
invisible control, or you can use this trick, based on the fact that the Picture property returns an
StdPicture object, which in turn exposes the Height and Width properties:
' StdPicture's Width and Height properties are expressed in
' Himetric units.
With Picture1
width = CInt(.ScaleX(.Picture.Width, vbHimetric, vbPixels))
height = CInt(.ScaleY(.Picture.Height, vbHimetric, _
vbPixels))
End With
75

By the way, in all subsequent code examples I assume that the source PictureBox control's
ScaleWidth and ScaleHeight properties match the actual bitmap's size. By default, the
PaintPicture method copies the entire source bitmap. But you can copy just a portion of it,
passing a value for srcWidth and srcHeight:
' Copy the upper left portion of the source image.
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, 0, 0, , , , , _
picSource.ScaleWidth / 2, picSource.ScaleHeight / 2
If you're copying just a portion of the source image, you probably want to pass a specific value
for the srcX and srcY values as well, which correspond to the coordinates of the top-left corner
of the area that will be copied from the source control:
' Copy the bottom-right portion of the source image
' in the corresponding corner in the destination.
wi = picSource.ScaleWidth / 2
he = picSource.ScaleHeight / 2
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, wi, he, , , wi, he, wi, he
You can use this method to tile a target PictureBox control (or form) with multiple copies of an
image stored in another control:
' Start with the leftmost column.
x = 0
Do While x < picDest.ScaleWidth
y = 0
' For each column, start at the top and work downward.
Do While y < picDest.ScaleHeight
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, x, y, , , 0, 0
' Next row
y = y + picSource.ScaleHeight
Loop
' Next column
x = x + picSource.ScaleWidth
Loop
Another great feature of the PaintPicture method lets you resize the image while you transfer it,
and you can even specify different zoom-in and zoom-out factors for the x- and y-axes
independently. You just have to pass a value to the destWidth and destHeight arguments: If these
values are greater than the source image's corresponding dimensions, you achieve a zoom-in
effect, and if they are less you get a zoom-out effect. For example, see how you can double the
size of the original image:
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, 0, 0, _
picSource.ScaleWidth * 2, picSource.ScaleHeight * 2
76

As a special case of the syntax of the PaintPicture method, the source image can even be flipped
along its x-axis, y-axis, or both by passing negative values for these arguments:
' Flip horizontally.
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, _
picSource.ScaleWidth, 0, -picSource.ScaleWidth
' Flip vertically.
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, 0, _
picSource.ScaleHeight, , -picSource.ScaleHeight
' Flip the image on both axes.
picDest.PaintPicture picSource.Picture, picSource.ScaleWidth, _
picSource.ScaleHeight, -picSource.ScaleWidth, -picSource.ScaleHeight
As you might expect, you can combine all these effects together, magnifying, reducing, or
flipping just a portion of the source image, and have the result appear in any point of the
destination PictureBox control (or form). You should find no problem in reusing all those
routines in your own applications.
As if all these capabilities weren't enough, we haven't covered the last argument of the
PaintPicture method yet. The opcode argument lets you specify which kind of Boolean operation
must be performed on pixel bits as they're transferred from the source image to the destination.
The values you can pass to this argument are the same that you assign to the DrawMode
property. The default value is 13-vbCopyPen, which simply copies the source pixels in the
destination control. By playing with the other settings, you can achieve many interesting
graphical effects, including simple animations.
The Image Control
Image controls are far less complex than PictureBox controls. They don't support graphical
methods or the AutoRedraw and the ClipControls properties, and they can't work as containers,
just to hint at their biggest limitations. Nevertheless, you should always strive to use Image
controls instead of PictureBox controls because they load faster and consume less memory and
system resources. Remember that Image controls are windowless objects that are actually
managed by Visual Basic without creating a Windows object. Image controls can load bitmaps
and JPEG and GIF images.
When you're working with an Image control, you typically load a bitmap into its Picture property
either at design time or at run time using the LoadPicture function. Image controls don't expose
the AutoSize property because by default they resize to display the contained image (as it
happens with PictureBox controls set at AutoSize = True). On the other hand, Image controls
support a Stretch property that, if True, resizes the image (distorting it if necessary) to fit the
control. In a sense, the Stretch property somewhat remedies the lack of the PaintPicture method
for this control. In fact, you can zoom in to or reduce an image by loading it in an Image control
and then setting its Stretch property to True to change its width and height:
' Load a bitmap.
77

Image1.Stretch = False
Image1.Picture = LoadPicture("c:\windows\setup.bmp")
' Reduce it by a factor of two.
Image1.Stretch = True
Image1.Move 0, 0, Image1.Width / 2, Image1.Width / 2
Image controls support all the usual mouse events. For this reason, many Visual Basic
developers have used Image controls to simulate graphical buttons and toolbars. Now that Visual
Basic natively supports these controls, you'd probably better use Image controls only for what
they were originally intended.

The Timer, Line, Shape and OLE Controls in
Visual Basic 6 (VB6)
The Timer Control
A Timer control is invisible at run time, and its purpose is to send a periodic pulse to the current
application. You can trap this pulse by writing code in the Timer's Timer event procedure and
take advantage of it to execute a task in the background or to monitor a user's actions. This
control exposes only two meaningful properties: Interval and Enabled. Interval stands for the
number of milliseconds between subsequent pulses (Timer events), while Enabled lets you
activate or deactivate events. When you place the Timer control on a form, its Interval is 0,
which means no events. Therefore, remember to set this property to a suitable value in the
Properties window or in the Form_Load event procedure:
Private Sub Form_Load()
Timer1.Interval = 500 ' Fire two Timer events per second.
End Sub
Timer controls let you write interesting programs with just a few lines of code. The typical (and
abused) example is a digital clock. Just to make things a bit more compelling, I added flashing
colons:
Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
Dim strTime As String
strTime = Time$
If Mid$(lblClock.Caption, 3, 1) = ":" Then
Mid$(strTime, 3, 1)= " "
Mid$(strTime, 6, 1) = " "
End If
lblClock.Caption = strTime
End Sub
78

You must be careful not to write a lot of code in the Timer event procedure because this code
will be executed at every pulse and therefore can easily degrade your application's performance.
Just as important, never execute a DoEvents statement inside a Timer event procedure because
you might cause the procedure to be reentered, especially if the Interval property is set to a small
value and there's a lot of code inside the procedure.
Timer controls are often useful for updating status information on a regular basis. For example,
you might want to display on a status bar a short description of the control that currently has the
input focus. You can achieve that by writing some code in the GotFocus event for all the controls
on the form, but when you have dozens of controls this will require a lot of code (and time).
Instead, at design time load a short description for each control in its Tag property, and then
place a Timer control on the form with an Interval setting of 500. This isn't a time-critical task,
so you can use an even larger value. Finally add two lines of code to the control's Timer event:
Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
On Error Resume Next
lblStatusBar.Caption = ActiveControl.Tag
End Sub
The Line Control
The Line control is a decorative control whose only purpose is let you draw one or more straight
lines at design time, instead of displaying them using a Line graphical method at run time. This
control exposes a few properties whose meaning should sound familiar to you by now:
BorderColor (the color of the line), BorderStyle (the same as a form's DrawStyle property),
BorderWidth (the same as a form's DrawWidth property), and DrawMode. While the Line
control is handy, remember that using a Line method at run time is usually better in terms of
performance.
The Shape Control
In a sense, the Shape control is an extension of the Line control. It can display six basic shapes:
Rectangle, Square, Oval, Circle, Rounded Rectangle, and Rounded Square. It supports all the
Line control's properties and a few more: BorderStyle (0-Transparent, 1-Solid), FillColor, and
FillStyle (the same as a form's properties with the same names). The same performance
considerations I pointed out for the Line control apply to the Shape control.
The OLE Control
When OLE first made its appearance, the concept of Object Linking and Embedding seemed to
most developers nothing short of magic. The ability to embed a Microsoft Word Document or a
Microsoft Excel worksheet within another Windows application seemed an exciting one, and
Microsoft promptly released the OLE controlthen called the OLE Container controlto help
Visual Basic support this capability.
In the long run, however, the Embedding term in OLE has lost much of its appeal and
79

importance, and nowadays programmers are more concerned and thrilled about Automation, a
subset of OLE that lets them control other Windows applications from the outside, manipulating
their object hierarchies through OLE. For this reason, I won't describe the OLE control: It's a
rather complex object, and a thorough description of its many properties, methods, and events
(and quirks) would take too much space.


Using ListBox and ComboBox Controls In
Visual Basic 6
ListBox and ComboBox controls present a set of choices that are displayed vertically in a column. If the
number of items exceed the value that be displayed, scroll bars will automatically appear on the control.
These scroll bars can be scrolled up and down or left to right through the list.
The following Fig lists some of the common ComboBox properties and methods.
Property/Method Description
Properties
Enabled
By setting this property to True or False user can decide whether user
can interact with this control or not
Index Specifies the Control array index
List
String array. Contains the strings displayed in the drop-down list.
Starting array index is 0.
ListCount Integer. Contains the number of drop-down list items
ListIndex
Integer. Contains the index of the selected ComboBox item. If an item
is not selected, ListIndex is -1
Locked Boolean. Specifies whether user can type or not in the ComboBox
MousePointer
Integer. Specifies the shape of the mouse pointer when over the area
of the ComboBox
NewIndex
Integer. Index of the last item added to the ComboBox. If the
80

ComboBox does not contain any items , NewIndex is -1
Sorted Boolean. Specifies whether the ComboBox's items are sorted or not.
Style Integer. Specifies the style of the ComboBox's appearance
TabStop Boolean. Specifies whether ComboBox receives the focus or not.
Text String. Specifies the selected item in the ComboBox
ToolTipIndex String. Specifies what text is displayed as the ComboBox's tool tip
Visible Boolean. Specifies whether ComboBox is visible or not at run time
Methods
AddItem Add an item to the ComboBox
Clear Removes all items from the ComboBox
RemoveItem Removes the specified item from the ComboBox
SetFocus Transfers focus to the ComboBox
Event Procedures
Change Called when text in ComboBox is changed
DropDown Called when the ComboBox drop-down list is displayed
GotFocus Called when ComboBox receives the focus
LostFocus Called when ComboBox loses it focus
Adding items to a List
It is possible to populate the list at design time or run time
Design Time : To add items to a list at design time, click on List property in the property box
and then add the items. Press CTRL+ENTER after adding each item as shown below.
81


Run Time : The AddItem method is used to add items to a list at run time. The AddItem method
uses the following syntax.
Object.AddItemitem, Index
The itemargument is a string that represents the text to add to the list
The index argument is an integer that indicates where in the list to add the new item. Not giving
the index is not a problem, because by default the index is assigned.
Following is an example to add item to a combo box. The code is typed in the Form_Load event
Private Sub Form_Load()
Combo1.AddItem 1
Combo1.AddItem 2
Combo1.AddItem 3
Combo1.AddItem 4
Combo1.AddItem 5
Combo1.AddItem 6
End Sub
Removing Items from a List
The RemoveItem method is used to remove an item from a list. The syntax for this is given
below.
Object.RemoveItem index
The following code verifies that an item is selected in the list and then removes the selected item
from the list.
Private Sub cmdRemove_Click()
If List1.ListIndex > -1 Then
List1.RemoveItem List1. ListIndex
End If
End Sub
82

Sorting the List
The Sorted property is set to True to enable a list to appear in alphanumeric order and False to
display the list items in the order which they are added to the list.
Using the ComboBox
A ComboBox combines the features of a TextBox and a ListBox. This enables the user to select
either by typing text into the ComboBox or by selecting an item from the list. There are three
types of ComboBox styles that are represented as shown below.

Dropdown
combo


Simple combo

Dropdown list
Dropdown Combo (style 0)
Simple Combo (style 1)
Dropdown List (style 2)
The Simple Combo box displays an edit area with an attached list box always visible
immediately below the edit area. A simple combo box displays the contents of its list all the
time. The user can select an item from the list or type an item in the edit box portion of the
combo box. A scroll bar is displayed beside the list if there are too many items to be displayed in
the list box area.
The Dropdown Combo box first appears as only an edit area with a down arrow button at the
right. The list portion stays hidden until the user clicks the down-arrow button to drop down the
list portion. The user can either select a value from the list or type a value in the edit area.
The Dropdown list combo box turns the combo box into a Dropdown list box. At run time , the
control looks like the Dropdown combo box. The user could click the down arrow to view the
list. The difference between Dropdown combo & Dropdown list combo is that the edit area in the
Dropdown list combo is disabled. The user can only select an item and cannot type anything in
the edit area. Anyway this area displays the selected item.
Example
This example is to Add , Remove, Clear the list of items and finally close the application.
Open a new Standard EXE project is opened an named the Form as Listbox.frm and save
the project as Listbox.vbp
83

Design the application as shown below.
Object Property Settings
Form
Caption
Name
ListBox
frmListBox
TextBox
Text
Name
(empty)
txtName
Label
Caption
Name
Enter a name
lblName
ListBox Name lstName
Label
Caption
Name
Amount Entered
lblAmount
Label
Caption
Name
Border Style
(empty)
lblDisplay
1 Fixed Single
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Add
cmdAdd
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Remove
cmdRemove
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Clear
cmdClear
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Exit
cmdExit
84


The following event procedures are entered for the TextBox and CommandButton controls.
Private Sub txtName_Change()
If (Len(txtName.Text) > 0) Then 'Enabling the Add button
'if atleast one character
'is entered
cmdAdd.Enabled = True
End If
End Sub
Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()
lstName.AddItem txtName.Text 'Add the entered the characters to the list box

txtName.Text = "" 'Clearing the text box

txtName.SetFocus 'Get the focus back to the
'text box

lblDisplay.Caption = lstName.ListCount 'Display the number of items in the list box

cmdAdd.Enabled = False ' Disabling the Add button
End Sub
The click event of the Add button adds the text to the list box that was typed in the Text box.
Then the text box is cleared and the focus is got to the text box. The number of entered values
will is increased according to the number of items added to the listbox.
Private Sub cmdClear_Click()
lstName.Clear
lblDisplay.Caption = lstName.ListCount
End Sub
Private Sub cmdExit_Click()
85

Unload Me
End Sub
Private Sub cmdRemove_Click()
Dim remove As Integer
remove = lstName.ListIndex 'Getting the index
If remove >= 0 Then 'make sure an item is selected
'in the list box
lstName.RemoveItem remove 'Remove item from the list box

lblDisplay.Caption = lstName.ListCount 'Display the number of items
'in the listbox
End If
End Sub
Remove button removes the selected item from the list as soon as you pressed the Remove
button. The number of items is decreased in the listbox and the value is displayed in the label.
The code for the clear button clears the listbox when you press it. And the number of items
shown in the label becomes 0.


VB ScrollBar - Using ScrollBar Control In
Visual Basic 6 (VB6)
The ScrollBar is a commonly used control, which enables the user to select a value by
positioning it at the desired location. It represents a set of values. The Min and Max property
represents the minimum and maximum value. The value property of the ScrollBar represents its
current value, that may be any integer between minimum and maximum values assigned.
The HScrollBar and the VScrollBar controls are perfectly identical, apart from their different
orientation. After you place an instance of such a control on a form, you have to worry about
only a few properties: Min and Max represent the valid range of values, SmallChange is the
variation in value you get when clicking on the scroll bar's arrows, and LargeChange is the
variation you get when you click on either side of the scroll bar indicator. The default initial
value for those two properties is 1, but you'll probably have to change LargeChange to a higher
86

value. For example, if you have a scroll bar that lets you browse a portion of text, SmallChange
should be 1 (you scroll one line at a time) and LargeChange should be set to match the number
of visible text lines in the window.
The most important run-time property is Value, which always returns the relative position of the
indicator on the scroll bar. By default, the Min value corresponds to the leftmost or upper end of
the control:
' Move the indicator near the top (or left) arrow.
VScroll1.Value = VScroll1.Min
' Move the indicator near the bottom (or right) arrow.
VScroll1.Value = VScroll1.Max
While this setting is almost always OK for horizontal scroll bars, you might sometimes need to
reverse the behavior of vertical scroll bars so that the zero is near the bottom of your form. This
arrangement is often desirable if you want to use a vertical scroll bar as a sort of slider. You
obtain this behavior by simply inverting the values in the Min and Max properties. (In other
words, it's perfectly legal for Min to be greater than Max.)
There are two key events for scrollbar controls: the Change event fires when you click on the
scroll bar arrows or when you drag the indicator; the Scroll event fires while you drag the
indicator. The reason for these two distinct possibilities is mostly historical. First versions of
Visual Basic supported only the Change event, and when developers realized that it wasn't
possible to have continuous feedback when users dragged the indicator, Microsoft engineers
added a new event instead of extending the Change event. In this way, old applications could be
recompiled without unexpected changes in their behavior. At any rate, this means that you must
often trap two distinct events:
' Show the current scroll bar's value.
Private VScroll1_Change()
Label1.Caption = VScroll1.Value
End Sub
Private VScroll1_Scroll()
Label1.Caption = VScroll1.Value
End Sub
The example shown in the following figure uses three VScrollBar controls as sliders to control
the individual RGB (red, green, blue) components of a color. The three scroll bars have their Min
property set to 255 and their Max property set to 0, while their SmallChange is 1 and
LargeChange is 16. This example is also a moderately useful program in itself because you can
select a color and then copy its numeric value to the clipboard and paste it in your application's
code as a decimal value, a hexadecimal value, or an RGB function.
87


Use scrollbar controls to visually create colors.
Scrollbar controls can receive the input focus, and in fact they support both the TabIndex and
TabStop properties. If you don't want the user to accidentally move the input focus on a scrollbar
control when he or she presses the Tab key, you must explicitly set its TabStop property to False.
When a scrollbar control has the focus, you can move the indicator using the Left, Right, Up,
Down, PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End keys. For example, you can take advantage of this behavior
to create a read-only TextBox control with a numeric value that can be edited only through a tiny
companion scroll bar. This scroll bar appears to the user as a sort of spin button, as you can see
in the figure below. To make the trick work, you need to write just a few lines of code:
Private Sub Text1_GotFocus()
' Pass the focus to the scroll bar.
VScroll1.SetFocus
End Sub
Private Sub VScroll1_Change()
' Scroll bar controls the text box value.
Text1.Text = VScroll1.Value
End Sub

You don't need external ActiveX controls to create functional spin buttons
Scrollbar controls are even more useful for building scrolling forms, like the one displayed in
Figure 3-15. To be certain, scrolling forms aren't the most ergonomic type of user interface you
can offer to your customers: If you have that many fields in a form, you should consider using a
Tab control, child forms, or some other custom interface. Sometimes, however, you badly need
scrollable forms, and in this situation you are on your own because Visual Basic forms don't
88

support scrolling.
Fortunately, it doesn't take long to convert a regular form into a scrollable one. You need a
couple of scrollbar controls, plus a PictureBox control that you use as the container for all the
controls on the form, and a filler controla CommandButton, for examplethat you place in
the bottom-right corner of the form when it displays the two scroll bars. The secret to creating
scrollable forms is that you don't move all the child controls one by one. Instead, you place all
the controls in the PictureBox control (named picCanvas in the following code), and you move it
when the user acts on the scroll bar:
Sub MoveCanvas()
picCanvas.Move -HScroll1.Value, -VScroll1.Value
End Sub
In other words, to uncover the portion of the form near the right border, you assign a negative
value to the PictureBox's Left property, and to display the portion near the form's bottom border
you set its Top property to a negative value. It's really that simple. You do this by calling the
MoveCanvas procedure from within the scroll bars' Change and Scroll events. Of course, it's
critical that you write code in the Form_Resize event, which makes a scroll bar appear and
disappear as the form is resized, and that you assign consistent values to Max properties of the
scrollbar controls:
' size of scrollbars in twips
Const SB_WIDTH = 300 ' width of vertical scrollbars
Const SB_HEIGHT = 300 ' height of horizontal scrollbars
Private Sub Form_Resize()
' Resize the scroll bars along the form.
HScroll1.Move 0, ScaleHeight - SB_HEIGHT, ScaleWidth - SB_WIDTH
VScroll1.Move ScaleWidth - SB_WIDTH, 0, SB_WIDTH, _
ScaleHeight - SB_HEIGHT
cmdFiller.Move ScaleWidth - SB_WIDTH, ScaleHeight - SB_HEIGHT, _
SB_WIDTH, SB_HEIGHT
' Put these controls on top.
HScroll1.ZOrder
VScroll1.ZOrder
cmdFiller.ZOrder
picCanvas.BorderStyle = 0
' A click on the arrow moves one pixel.
HScroll1.SmallChange = ScaleX(1, vbPixels, vbTwips)
VScroll1.SmallChange = ScaleY(1, vbPixels, vbTwips)
' A click on the scroll bar moves 16 pixels.
HScroll1.LargeChange = HScroll1.SmallChange * 16
VScroll1.LargeChange = VScroll1.SmallChange * 16
89

' If the form is larger than the picCanvas picture box,
' we don't need to show the corresponding scroll bar.
If ScaleWidth < picCanvas.Width + SB_WIDTH Then
HScroll1.Visible = True
HScroll1.Max = picCanvas.Width + SB_WIDTH - ScaleWidth
Else
HScroll1.Value = 0
HScroll1.Visible = False
End If
If ScaleHeight < picCanvas.Height + SB_HEIGHT Then
VScroll1.Visible = True
VScroll1.Max = picCanvas.Height + SB_HEIGHT - ScaleHeight
Else
VScroll1.Value = 0
VScroll1.Visible = False
End If
' Make the filler control visible only if necessary.
cmdFiller.Visible = (HScroll1.Visible Or VScroll1.Visible)
MoveCanvas
End Sub
Working with scrollable forms at design time isn't comfortable. I suggest that you work with a
maximized form and with the PictureBox control sized as large as possible. When you're finished
with the form interface, resize the PictureBox control to the smallest area that contains all the
controls, and then reset the form's WindowState property to 0-Normal.


Control Arrays in Visual Basic 6
A control array is a group of controls that share the same name type and the same event procedures.
Adding controls with control arrays uses fewer resources than adding multiple control of same type at
design time.
A control array can be created only at design time, and at the very minimum at least one control
must belong to it. You create a control array following one of these three methods:
You create a control and then assign a numeric, non-negative value to its Index property;
you have thus created a control array with just one element.
You create two controls of the same class and assign them an identical Name property.
Visual Basic shows a dialog box warning you that there's already a control with that
name and asks whether you want to create a control array. Click on the Yes button.
You select a control on the form, press Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard, and then press
90

Ctrl+V to paste a new instance of the control, which has the same Name property as the
original one. Visual Basic shows the warning mentioned in the previous bullet.
Control arrays are one of the most interesting features of the Visual Basic environment, and they
add a lot of flexibility to your programs:
Controls that belong to the same control array share the same set of event procedures; this
often dramatically reduces the amount of code you have to write to respond to a user's
actions.
You can dynamically add new elements to a control array at run time; in other words, you
can effectively create new controls that didn't exist at design time.
Elements of control arrays consume fewer resources than regular controls and tend to
produce smaller executables. Besides, Visual Basic forms can host up to 256 different
control names, but a control array counts as one against this number. In other words,
control arrays let you effectively overcome this limit.
The importance of using control arrays as a means of dynamically creating new controls at run
time is somewhat reduced in Visual Basic 6, which has introduced a new and more powerful
capability.
Don't let the term array lead you to think control array is related to VBA arrays; they're
completely different objects. Control arrays can only be one-dimensional. They don't need to be
dimensioned: Each control you add automatically extends the array. The Index property
identifies the position of each control in the control array it belongs to, but it's possible for a
control array to have holes in the index sequence. The lowest possible value for the Index
property is 0. You reference a control belonging to a control array as you would reference a
standard array item:
Text1(0).Text = ""
Sharing Event Procedures
Event procedures related to items in a control array are easily recognizable because they have an
extra Index parameter, which precedes all other parameters. This extra parameter receives the
index of the element that's raising the event, as you can see in this example:
Private Sub Text1_KeyPress(Index As Integer, KeyAscii As Integer)
MsgBox "A key has been pressed on Text1(" & Index & ") control"
End Sub
The fact that multiple controls can share the same set of event procedures is often in itself a good
reason to create a control array. For example, say that you want to change the background color
of each of your TextBox controls to yellow when it receives the input focus and restore its
background color to white when the user clicks on another field:
Private Sub Text1_GotFocus(Index As Integer)
91

Text1(Index).BackColor = vbYellow
End Sub
Private Sub Text1_LostFocus(Index As Integer)
Text1(Index).BackColor = vbWhite
End Sub
Control arrays are especially useful with groups of OptionButton controls because you can
remember which element in the group has been activated by adding one line of code to their
shared Click event. This saves code when the program needs to determine which button is the
active one:
' A module-level variable
Dim optFrequencyIndex As Integer
Private Sub optFrequency_Click(Index As Integer)
' Remember the last button selected.
optFrequencyIndex = Index
End Sub
Creating Controls at Run Time
Control arrays can be created at run time using the statements
Load object (Index %)
Unload object (Index %)
Where object is the name of the control to add or delete from the control array. Index % is the
value of the index in the array. The control array to be added must be an element of the existing
array created at design time with an index value of 0. When a new element of a control array is
loaded, most of the property settings are copied from the lowest existing element in the array.
Following example illustrates the use of the control array.
* Open a Standard EXE project and save the Form as Calculator.frm and save the Project as
Calculater.vbp.
* Design the form as shown below.
Object Property Setting
Form
Caption
Name
Calculator
frmCalculator
CommandButton Caption 1
92

Name
Index
cmd
0
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
2
cmd
1
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
3
cmd
2
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
4
cmd
3
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
5
cmd
4
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
6
cmd
5
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
7
cmd
6
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
8
cmd
7
CommandButton
Caption
Name
9
cmd
93

Index 8
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
0
cmd
10
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Index
.
cmd
11
CommandButton
Caption
Name
AC
cmdAC
CommandButton
Caption
Name
+
cmdPlus
CommandButton
Caption
Name
-
cmdMinus
CommandButton
Caption
Name
*
cmdMultiply
CommandButton
Caption
Name
/
cmdDivide
CommandButton
Caption
Name
+/-
cmdNeg
TextBox
Name
Text
txtDisplay
( empty )
CommandButton
Caption
Name
=
cmdEqual
94


The following variables are declared inside the general declaration
Dim Current As Double
Dim Previous As Double
Dim Choice As String
Dim Result As Double
The following code is entered in the cmd_Click( ) (Control Array) event procedure
Private Sub cmd_Click(Index As Integer)
txtDisplay.Text = txtDisplay.Text & cmd(Index).Caption
'&is the concatenation operator
Current = Val(txtDisplay.Text)
End Sub
The following code is entered in the cmdAC_Click ( ) event procedure
Private Sub cmdAC_Click()
Current = Previous = 0
txtDisplay.Text = ""
End Sub
The below code is entered in the cmdNeg_Click( ) procedure
Private Sub cmdNeg_Click()
Current = -Current
txtDisplay.Text = Current
End Sub
The following code is entered in the click events of the cmdPlus, cmdMinus, cmdMultiply,
cmdDevide controls respectively.
Private Sub cmdDevide_Click()
txtDisplay.Text = ""
Previous = Current
95

Current = 0
Choice = "/"
End Sub
Private Sub cmdMinus_Click()
txtDisplay.Text = ""
Previous = Current
Current = 0
Choice = "-"
End Sub
Private Sub cmdMultiply_Click()
txtDisplay.Text = ""
Previous = Current
Current = 0
Choice = "*"
End Sub
Private Sub cmdPlus_Click()
txtDisplay.Text = ""
Previous = Current
Current = 0
Choice = "+"
End Sub
To print the result on the text box, the following code is entered in the cmdEqual_Click ( ) event
procedure.
Private Sub cmdEqual_Click()
Select Case Choice

Case "+"
Result = Previous + Current
txtDisplay.Text = Result
Case "-"
Result = Previous - Current
txtDisplay.Text = Result
Case "*"
Result = Previous * Current
txtDisplay.Text = Result
Case "/"
Result = Previous / Current
txtDisplay.Text = Result
End Select

96

Current = Result

End Sub
Save and run the project. On clicking digits of user's choice and an operator button, the output
appears.
Iterating on the Items of a Control Array
Control arrays often let you save many lines of code because you can execute the same
statement, or group of statements, for every control in the array without having to duplicate the
code for each distinct control. For example, you can clear the contents of all the items in an array
of TextBox controls as follows:
For i = txtFields.LBound To txtFields.UBound
txtFields(i).Text = ""
Next
Here you're using the LBound and UBound methods exposed by the control array object, which
is an intermediate object used by Visual Basic to gather all the controls in the array. In general,
you shouldn't use this approach to iterate over all the items in the array because if the array has
holes in the Index sequence an error will be raised. A better way to loop over all the items of a
control array is using the For Each statement:
Dim txt As TextBox
For Each txt In txtFields
txt.Text = ""
Next
A third method exposed by the control array object, Count, returns the number of elements it
contains. It can be useful on several occasions (for example, when removing all the controls that
were added dynamically at run time):
' This code assumes that txtField(0) is the only control that was
' created at design time (you can't unload it at run time).
Do While txtFields.Count > 1
Unload txtFields(txtFields.UBound)
Loop
Arrays of Menu Items
Control arrays are especially useful with menus because arrays offer a solution to the
proliferation of menu Click events and, above all, permit you to create new menus at run time.
An array of menu controls is conceptually similar to a regular control array, only you set the
Index property to a numeric (non-negative) value in the Menu Editor instead of in the Properties
window.
97

There are some limitations, though: All the items in an array of menu controls must be adjacent
and must belong to the same menu level, and their Index properties must be in ascending order
(even though holes in the sequence are allowed). This set of requirements severely hinders your
ability to create new menu items at run time. In fact, you can create new menu items in well-
defined positions of your menu hierarchynamely, where you put a menu item with a nonzero
Index valuebut you can't create new submenus or new top-level menus.
Now that you have a thorough understanding of how Visual Basic's forms and controls work,
you're ready to dive into the subtleties of the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language.

DriveListBox, DirListBox, and FileListBox
Controls in Visual Basic 6
Three of the controls on the ToolBox let you access the computer's file system. They are
DriveListBox, DirListBox and FileListBox controls (see below figure) , which are the basic
blocks for building dialog boxes that display the host computer's file system. Using these
controls, user can traverse the host computer's file system, locate any folder or files on any hard
disk, even on network drives. The files are controls are independent of one another, and each can
exist on it's own, but they are rarely used separately. The files controls are described next.
In a nutshell, the DriveListBox control is a combobox-like control that's automatically filled with
your drive's letters and volume labels. The DirListBox is a special list box that displays a
directory tree. The FileListBox control is a special-purpose ListBox control that displays all the
files in a given directory, optionally filtering them based on their names, extensions, and
attributes.
These controls often work together on the same form; when the user selects a drive in a
DriveListBox, the DirListBox control is updated to show the directory tree on that drive. When
the user selects a path in the DirListBox control, the FileListBox control is filled with the list of
files in that directory. These actions don't happen automatically, howeveryou must write code
to get the job done.
After you place a DriveListBox and a DirListBox control on a form's surface, you usually don't
have to set any of their properties; in fact, these controls don't expose any special property, not in
the Properties window at least. The FileListBox control, on the other hand, exposes one property
that you can set at design timethe Pattern property. This property indicates which files are to
be shown in the list area: Its default value is *.* (all files), but you can enter whatever
specification you need, and you can also enter multiple specifications using the semicolon as a
separator. You can also set this property at run time, as in the following line of code:
File1.Pattern = "*.txt;*.doc;*.rtf"
98

Following figure shows three files controls are used in the design of Forms that let users explore
the entire structure of their hard disks.

DriveListBox : Displays the names of the drives within and connected to the PC. The
basic property of this control is the drive property, which set the drive to be initially
selected in the control or returns the user's selection.
DirListBox : Displays the folders of current Drive. The basic property of this control is
the Path property, which is the name of the folder whose sub folders are displayed in the
control.
FileListBox : Displays the files of the current folder. The basic property of this control is
also called Path, and it's the path name of the folder whose files are displayed.
The three File controls are not tied to one another. If you place all three of them on a Form, you
will see the names of all the folders under the current folder, and so on. Each time you select a
folder in the DirlistBox by double clicking its name, its sub folders are displayed. Similarly , the
FileListBox control will display the names of all files in the current folder. Selecting a drive in
the DriveListBox control, however this doesn't affect the contents of the DirListBox.
To connect to the File controls, you must assign the appropriate values to the properties. To
compel the DirListBox to display the folders of the selected drive in the DriveListBox, you must
make sure that each time the user selects another drive, the Path property of the DirListBox
control matches the Drive property of the DriveListBox.
After these preliminary steps, you're ready to set in motion the chain of events. When the user
selects a new drive in the DriveListBox control, it fires a Change event and returns the drive
letter (and volume label) in its Drive property. You trap this event and set the DirListBox
control's Path property to point to the root directory of the selected drive:
Private Sub Drive1_Change()
' The Drive property also returns the volume label, so trim it.
Dir1.Path = Left$(Drive1.Drive, 1) & ":\"
End Sub
When the user double-clicks on a directory name, the DirListBox control raises a Change event;
99

you trap this event to set the FileListBox's Path property accordingly:
Private Sub Dir1_Change()
File1.Path = Dir1.Path
End Sub
Finally, when the user clicks on a file in the FileListBox control, a Click event is fired (as if it
were a regular ListBox control), and you can query its Filename property to learn which file has
been selected. Note how you build the complete path:
Filename = File1.Path
If Right$(Filename, 1) <> "\" Then Filename = Filename & "\"
Filename = Filename & File1.Filename
The DirListBox and FileListBox controls support most of the properties typical of the control
they derive fromthe ListBox controlincluding the ListCount and the ListIndex properties
and the Scroll event. The FileListBox control supports multiple selection; hence you can set its
MultiSelect property in the Properties window and query the SelCount and Selected properties at
run time.
The FileListBox control also exposes a few custom Boolean properties, Normal, Archive,
Hidden, ReadOnly, and System, which permit you to decide whether files with these attributes
should be listed. (By default, the control doesn't display hidden and system files.) This control
also supports a couple of custom events, PathChange and PatternChange, that fire when the
corresponding property is changed through code. In most cases, you don't have to worry about
them, and I won't provide examples of their usage.
The problem with the DriveListBox, DirListBox and FileListBox controls is that they're
somewhat outdated and aren't used by most commercial applications any longer. Moreover, these
controls are known to work incorrectly when listing files on network servers and sometimes even
on local disk drives, especially when long file and directory names are used. For this reason, I
discourage you from using them and suggest instead that you use the Common Dialog controls
for your FileOpen and FileSave dialog boxes. But if you need to ask the user for the name of a
directory rather than a file, you're out of luck becausewhile Windows does include such a
system dialog box, named BrowseForFolders dialogVisual Basic still doesn't offer a way to
display it (unless you do some advanced API programming). Fortunately, Visual Basic 6 comes
with a new controlthe ImageCombo controlthat lets you simulate the appearance of the
DriveListBox control. It also offers you a powerful librarythe FileSystemObject librarythat
completely frees you from using these three controls, if only as hidden controls that you use just
for quickly retrieving information on the file system.


100

Using a CheckBox control in Visual Basic 6
The CheckBox control is similar to the option button, except that a list of choices can be made
using check boxes where you cannot choose more than one selection using an OptionButton. By
ticking the CheckBox the value is set to True. This control can also be grayed when the state of
the CheckBox is unavailable, but you must manage that state through code.
When you place a CheckBox control on a form, all you have to do, usually, is set its Caption
property to a descriptive string. You might sometimes want to move the little check box to the
right of its caption, which you do by setting the Alignment property to 1-Right Justify, but in
most cases the default setting is OK. If you want to display the control in a checked state, you set
its Value property to 1-Checked right in the Properties window, and you set a grayed state with
2-Grayed.
The only important event for CheckBox controls is the Click event, which fires when either the
user or the code changes the state of the control. In many cases, you don't need to write code to
handle this event. Instead, you just query the control's Value property when your code needs to
process user choices. You usually write code in a CheckBox control's Click event when it affects
the state of other controls. For example, if the user clears a check box, you might need to disable
one or more controls on the form and reenable them when the user clicks on the check box again.
This is how you usually do it (here I grouped all the relevant controls in one frame named
Frame1):
Private Sub Check1_Click()
Frame1.Enabled = (Check1.Value = vbChecked)
End Sub
Note that Value is the default property for CheckBox controls, so you can omit it in code. I
suggest that you not do that, however, because it would reduce the readability of your code.
The following example illustrates the use of CheckBox control
* Open a new Project and save the Form as CheckBox.frm and save the Project as
CheckBox.vbp
* Design the Form as shown below
Object Property Setting
Form
Caption
Name
CheckBox
frmCheckBox
CheckBox
Caption
Name
Bold
chkBold
101

CheckBox
Caption
Name
Italic
chkItalic
CheckBox
Caption
Name
Underline
chkUnderline
OptionButton
Caption
Name
Red
optRed
OptionButton
Caption
Name
Blue
optBlue
OptionButton
Caption
Name
Green
optGreen
TextBox
Name
Text
txtDisplay
(empty)
CommandButton
Caption
Name
Exit
cmdExit

Following code is typed in the Click() events of the CheckBoxes
Private Sub chkBold_Click()
If chkBold.Value = 1 Then
txtDisplay.FontBold = True
Else
txtDisplay.FontBold = False
End If
End Sub
102

Private Sub chkItalic_Click()
If chkItalic.Value = 1 Then
txtDisplay.FontItalic = True
Else
txtDisplay.FontItalic = False
End If
End Sub
Private Sub chkUnderline_Click()
If chkUnderline.Value = 1 Then
txtDisplay.FontUnderline = True
Else
txtDisplay.FontUnderline = False
End If
End Sub
Following code is typed in the Click() events of the OptionButtons
Private Sub optBlue_Click()
txtDisplay.ForeColor = vbBlue
End Sub
Private Sub optRed_Click()
txtDisplay.ForeColor = vbRed
End Sub
Private Sub optGreen_Click()
txtDisplay.ForeColor = vbGreen
End Sub
To terminate the program following code is typed in the Click() event of the Exit button
Private Sub cmdExit_Click()
End
End Sub
Run the program by pressing F5. Check the program by clicking on OptionButtons and
CheckBoxes.


Working with Forms in Visual Basic 6
103

The Appearance of Forms
The main characteristic of a Form is the title bar on which the Form's caption is displayed. On the left
end of the title bar is the Control Menu icon. Clicking this icon opens the Control Menu. Maximize,
Minimize and Close buttons can be found on the right side of the Form. Clicking on these buttons
performs the associated function.
The following figure illustrates the appearance of a Form

The control menu contains the following commands :
Restore : Restores a maximized Form to the size it was before it was maximized;
available only if the Form has been maximized.
Move : Lets the user moves the Form around with the mouse
Size : Lets the user resizes the control with the mouse
Minimize: Minimizes the Form
Maximize : Maximizes the Form
Close : Closes the Form
Setting the Start-Up Form
A typical application has more than a single Form. When an application runs the main Form is
loaded. By setting the Project properties you can control which Form is to be displayed in the
Start-Up of the application. Following figure illustrates the Project property window.

104

By default, Visual Basic suggests the name of the first Form created when the project started.
Loading and Unloading Forms
In order to load and unload the forms, Load and Unload statements are used. The Load statement
has the following syntax :
Load FormName
And the Unload statement has the following syntax :
Unload FormName
The FormName variable is the name of the Form to be loaded or unloaded. Unlike the Show
method which cares of both loading and displaying the Form, the load statement doesn't show
the Form. You have to call the Form's Show method to display it on the desktop.
Showing and Hiding Forms
Show method is used to Show a Form. If the Form is loaded but invisible, the Show method is
used to bring the Form on Top every other window. If the Form is not loaded, the Show method
loads it and then displays it.
Syntax of the Show method of the Form
FormName.Show mode
The FormName variable is the Form's name, and the optional argument mode determines
whether the Form will be Modal or not. It can have one of the following syntax :

* 0-Modeless (default)
* 1-Modal
Modeless Forms are the normal Forms. Modeless Forms interact with the user and the user
allowed to switch to any other Form of the application. If you do not specify the optional mode
argument, by default the mode is set to modeless.
The Modal Forms takes the total control of the application where user cannot switch to any other
Forms in the application unless the Form is closed. A modal Form, thus, must have a Close
button or some means to close the Form in order to return to the Form where the Modal Form
was loaded.
Hiding Forms
105

The Hide method is used to hide a Form. The following is the syntax of the Hide Method.
FormName.Hide
To hide a Form from within its own code, the following code can be used.
Me.Hide
You must understand that the Forms that are hidden are not unloaded ; they remains in the
memory and can be displayed instantly with the Show Method. When a Form is hidden, you can
still access its properties and code. For instance, you can change the settings of its Control
Properties or call any Public functions in the Form.
The following is an example illustrates the Show method and Mode statement
* Open a new Project and save the Project
Design the application as shown below
Object Property Setting
Form
Caption
Name
Form1
frm1
Form
Caption
Name
Form2
frm2
Form
Caption
Name
Form3
frm3
Label
Caption
Name
Click on a
button to display
a Form
Label1
106


The following code is typed in the Click event of the command buttons

Run the application. Clicking on the buttons will display the Forms respectively. But you can see
that in the cmd2_Click( ) event additionally VbModal argument has been added. You can see the
difference after you display the forms by clicking on the command buttons. You can notice that
you cannot switch to any other Forms in the application unless you close the Form3. (Download
the source code)
Finding out the difference between Unload and Hide method
To know what the difference is between Unload and Hide methods we will do an example. Open
a new project and save the project. Draw two buttons on the form and name those as shown
above.

In the click event of the Hide button Following code is entered.
107

Me.Hide
In the click event of the Unload button following code is entered.
Unload Me
Save the project and run the application. Once you click on Hide button you can note that the
Form is invisible but the application is still running. But when you click on Unload button you
can see that the application is terminated.


Working with Menus in Visual Basic 6 (VB6)
Windows applications provide groups of related commands in Menus. These commands depends
on the application, but some-such as Open and Save are frequently found in applications. Menus
are intrinsic controls, and as such they deserve a place in this chapter. On the other hand, menus
behave differently from other controls. For example, you don't drop menu items on a form from
the Toolbox; rather, you design them in the Menu Editor window, as you can see in the figur
below. You invoke this tool from the Menu Editor button on the standard toolbar or by pressing
the Ctrl+E shortcut key. There's also a Menu Editor command in the Tools menu, but you
probably won't use it often.
Visual Basic provides an easy way to create menus with the modal Menu Editor dialog. The
below dialog is displayed when the Menu Editor is selected in the Tool Menu. The Menu Editor
command is grayed unless the form is visible. And also you can display the Menu Editor window
by right clicking on the Form and selecting Menu Editor.
Basically, each menu item has a Caption property (possibly with an embedded & character to
create an access key) and a Name. Each item also exposes three Boolean properties, Enabled,
Visible, and Checked, which you can set both at design time and at run time. At design time, you
can assign the menu item a shortcut key so that your end users don't have to go through the menu
system each time they want to execute a frequent command. (Do you really like pulling down the
Edit menu any time you need to clear some text or copy it to the Clipboard?) The assigned
shortcut key can't be queried at run time, much less modified.
Building a menu is a simple, albeit more tedious, job: You enter the item's Caption and Name,
set other properties (or accept the default values for those properties), and press Enter to move to
the next item. When you want to create a submenu, you press the Right Arrow button (or the
Alt+R hot key). When you want to return to work on top-level menusthose items that appear
in the menu bar when the application runsyou click the Left Arrow button (or press Alt+L).
You can move items up and down in the hierarchy by clicking the corresponding buttons or the
hot keys Alt+U and Alt+B, respectively.
108

You can create up to five levels of submenus (six including the menu bar), which are too many
even for the most patient user. If you find yourself working with more than three menu levels,
think about trashing your specifications and redesigning your application from the ground up.
You can insert a separator bar using the hypen (-) character for the Caption property. But even
these separator items must be assigned a unique value for the Name property, which is a real
nuisance. If you forget to enter a menu item's Name, the Menu Editor complains when you
decide to close it. The convention used in this book is that all menu names begin with the three
letters mnu.
An expanded Menu Editor window.

An expanded menu

One of the most annoying defects of the Menu Editor tool is that it doesn't permit you to reuse
the menus you have already written in other applications. It would be great if you could open
another instance of the Visual Basic IDE, copy one or more menu items to the clipboard, and
then paste those menu items in the application under development. You can do that with controls
and with pieces of code, but not with menus! The best thing you can do in Visual Basic is load
the FRM file using an editor such as Notepad, find the portion in the file that corresponds to the
menu you're interested in, load the FRM file you're developing (still in Notepad), and paste the
code there. This isn't the easiest operation, and it's also moderately dangerous: If you paste the
109

menu definition in the wrong place, you could make your FRM form completely unreadable.
Therefore, always remember to make backup copies of your forms before trying this operation.
Better news is that you can add a finished menu to a form in your application with just a few
mouse clicks. All you have to do is activate the Add-In Manager from the Add-Ins menu, choose
the VB 6 Template Manager, and tick the Loaded/Unloaded check box. After you do that, you'll
find three new commands in the Tools menu: Add Code Snippet, Add Menu, and Add Control
Set. Visual Basic 6 comes with a few menu templates, as you can see in the following figure, that
you might find useful as a starting point for building your own templates. To create your menu
templates, you only have to create a form with the complete menu and all the related code and
then store this form in the \Templates\Menus directory. (The complete path, typically c:\Program
Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\Template, can be found in the Environment tab of the
Options dialog box on the Tools menu. The Template Manager was already available with
Visual Basic 5, but it had to be installed manually and relatively few programmers were aware of
its existence.

The Template Manager in action
The programmer can create menu control arrays. The Index TextBox specifies the menu's index
in the control array.
The Menu Editor dialog also provides several CheckBoxes to control the appearance of the
Menu.
Checked : This is unchecked by default and allows the programmer the option of creating a
checked menu item( a menu item that act as a toggle and displays a check mark when selected.
The following is a Check Menu items.
110


Enabled : specifies whether a menu is disabled or not. If you see a disabled command in a menu
that means that feature is not available. The Visible checkbox specifies whether the menu is
visible or not.
To add commands to the Form's menu bar, enter a caption and a name for each command. As
soon as you start typing the command's caption, it also appears in a new line in the list at the
bottom of the Menu Editor window. To add more commands click Enter and type the Caption
and the Name.
Creating Menus
Open a new Project and save the form as menu.frm and save the project as menu.vbp.
Choose Tools Menu Editor and type the menu items as shown below.
Caption Name
File mnuFile
Open mnuOpen
Save mnuSave
Exit mnuExit
Edit mnuEdit
Copy mnuCopy
Cut mnuCut
Paste mnuPaste
111


Run the application by pressing F5. You can see that you can select a menu.


Accessing Menus at Run Time in Visual Basic
6
Menu controls expose only one event, Click. As you expect, this event fires when the user clicks
on the menu:
Private Sub mnuFileExit_Click()
Unload Me
End Sub
You can manipulate menu items at run time through their Checked, Visible, and Enabled
properties. For example, you can easily implement a menu item that acts as a switch and displays
or hides a status bar:
Private Sub mnuViewStatus_Click()
' First, add or remove the check sign.
mnuViewStatus.Checked = Not mnuViewStatus.Checked
' Then make the status bar visible or not.
staStatusBar.Visible = mnuViewStatus.Checked
End Sub
112

While menu items can be responsible for their own Checked status, you usually set their Visible
and Enabled properties in another region of the code. You make a menu item invisible or
disabled when you want to make the corresponding command unavailable to the user. You can
choose from two different strategies to achieve this goal: You can set the menu properties as
soon as something happens that affects that menu command, or you can set them one instant
before the menu is dropped down. Let me explain these strategies with two examples.
Let's say that the Save command from the File menu should look disabled if your application has
loaded a read-only file. In this case, the most obvious place in code to set the menu Enabled
property to False is in the procedure that loads the file, as shown in the code below.
Private Sub LoadDataFile(filename As String)
' Load the file in the program.
' ... (code omitted)...
' Enable or disable the menu enabled state according to the file's
' read-only attribute (no need for an If...Else block).
mnuFileSave.Enabled = (GetAttr(filename) And vbReadOnly)
End Sub
This solution makes sense because the menu state doesn't change often. By comparison, the state
of most of the commands in a typical Edit menu (Copy, Cut, Clear, Undo, and so on) depends on
whether any text is currently selected in the active control. In this case, changing the menu state
any time a condition changes (because the user selects or deselects text in the active control, for
example) is a waste of time, and it also requires a lot of code. Therefore, it's preferable to set the
state of those menu commands in the parent menu's Click event just before displaying the menu:
Private Sub mnuEdit_Click()
' The user has clicked on the Edit menu,
' but the menu hasn't dropped down yet.
On Error Resume Next
' Error handling is necessary because we don't know if
' the Active control actually supports these properties.
mnuEditCopy.Enabled = (ActiveControl.SelText <> "")
mnuEditCut.Enabled = (ActiveControl.SelText <> "")
mnuEditClear.Enabled = (ActiveControl.SelText <> "")
End Sub

Creating Pop-up Menus in Visual Basic 6
Visual Basic also supports pop-up menus, those context-sensitive menus that most commercial
applications show when you right-click on an user interface object. In Visual Basic, you can
display a pop-up menu by calling the form's PopupMenu method, typically from within the
MouseDown event procedure of the object:
113

Private Sub List1_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, _
X As Single, Y As Single)
If Button And vbRightButton Then
' User right-clicked the list box.
PopupMenu mnuListPopup
End If
End Sub
The argument you pass to the PopupMenu method is the name of a menu that you have defined
using the Menu Editor. This might be either a submenu that you can reach using the regular
menu structure or a submenu that's intended to work only as a pop-up menu. In the latter case,
you should create it as a top-level menu in the Menu Editor and then set its Visible attribute to
False. If your program includes many pop-up menus, you might find it convenient to add one
invisible top-level entry and then add all the pop-up menus below it. (In this case, you don't need
to make each individual item invisible.) The complete syntax of the PopupMenu method is quite
complex:
PopupMenu Menu, [Flags], [X], [Y], [DefaultMenu]
By default, pop-up menus appear left aligned on the mouse cursor, and even if you use a right-
click to invoke the menu you can select a command only with the left button. You can change
these defaults using the Flags argument. The following constants control the alignment: 0-
vbPopupMenuLeftAlign (default), 4-vbPopupMenuCenterAlign, and 8-
vbPopupMenuRightAlign. The following constants determine which buttons are active during
menu operations: 0-vbPopupMenuLeftButton (default) and 2-vbPopupMenuRightButton. For
example, I always use the latter because I find it natural to select a command with the right
button since it's already pressed when the menu appears:
PopupMenu mnuListPopup, vbPopupMenuRightButton
The x and y arguments, if specified, make the menu appear in a particular position on the form,
rather than at mouse coordinates. The last optional argument is the name of the menu that's the
default item for the pop-up menu. This item will be displayed in boldface. This argument has
only a visual effect; If you want to offer a default menu item, you must write code in the
MouseDown event procedure to trap double-clicks with the right button.
You can take advantage of the x and y arguments in a PopupMenu method to make your
program more Windows compliant, and show your pop-up menus over the control that has the
focus when the user presses the Application key (the key beside the Windows key on the right
side of a typical extended keyboard, such as the Microsoft Natural Keyboard). But remember
that Visual Basic doesn't define any key-code constant for this key. Here's how you must
proceed:
Private Sub List1_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
If KeyCode = 93 Then
' The system pop-up menu key has been pressed.
114

' Show a pop-up menu near the list box's center.
PopupMenu mnuListPopup, , List1.Left + _
List1.Width / 2, List1.Top + List1.Height / 2
End If
End Sub
Visual Basic's implementation of pop-up menus has a serious flaw. All Visual Basic TextBox
controls react to right-clicks by showing the standard Edit pop-up menu (with the usual
commands, such as Undo, Copy, Cut, and so on). The problem is that if you invoke a
PopupMenu method from within the TextBox control's MouseDown event, your custom pop-up
menu will be displayed only after the standard one, which is obviously undesirable. You can
solve it only by resorting to the unorthodox and undocumented technique shown below.
Private Sub Text1_MouseDown(Button As Integer, _
Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
If Button And vbRightButton Then
Text1.Enabled = False
PopupMenu mnuMyPopup
Text1.Enabled = True
End If
End Sub

The Multiple Document Interface (MDI) in
Visual Basic 6
The Multiple Document Interface (MDI) was designed to simplify the exchange of information
among documents, all under the same roof. With the main application, you can maintain multiple
open windows, but not multiple copies of the application. Data exchange is easier when you can
view and compare many documents simultaneously.
You almost certainly use Windows applications that can open multiple documents at the same
time and allow the user to switch among them with a mouse-click. Multiple Word is a typical
example, although most people use it in single document mode. Each document is displayed in
its own window, and all document windows have the same behavior. The main Form, or MDI
Form, isn't duplicated, but it acts as a container for all the windows, and it is called the parent
window. The windows in which the individual documents are displayed are called Child
windows.
An MDI application must have at least two Form, the parent Form and one or more child Forms.
Each of these Forms has certain properties. There can be many child forms contained within the
parent Form, but there can be only one parent Form.
115

The parent Form may not contain any controls. While the parent Form is open in design mode,
the icons on the ToolBox are not displayed, but you can't place any controls on the Form. The
parent Form can, and usually has its own menu.
To create an MDI application, follow these steps:
1. Start a new project and then choose Project >>> Add MDI Form to add the parent Form.
2. Set the Form's caption to MDI Window
3. Choose Project >>> Add Form to add a SDI Form.
4. Make this Form as child of MDI Form by setting the MDI Child property of the SDI
Form to True. Set the caption property to MDI Child window.
Visual Basic automatically associates this new Form with the parent Form. This child Form can't
exist outside the parent Form; in the words, it can only be opened within the parent Form.

Parent and Child Menus
MDI Form cannot contain objects other than child Forms, but MDI Forms can have their own
menus. However, because most of the operations of the application have meaning only if there is
at least one child Form open, there's a peculiarity about the MDI Forms. The MDI Form usually
has a menu with two commands to load a new child Form and to quit the application. The child
Form can have any number of commands in its menu, according to the application. When the
child Form is loaded, the child Form's menu replaces the original menu on the MDI Form
Following example illustrates the above explanation.
* Open a new Project and name the Form as Menu.frm and save the Project as Menu.vbp
* Design a menu that has the following structure.
<> MDIMenu Menu caption
MDIOpen opens a new child Form
MDIExit terminates the application
116

* Then design the following menu for the child Form
<> ChildMenu Menu caption
Child Open opens a new child Form
Child Save saves the document in the active child Form
Child Close Closes the active child Form
At design time double click on MDI Open and add the following code in the click event of the
open menu.
Form1.Show
And so double click on MDI Exit and add the following code in the click event
End
Double click on Child Close and enter the following code in the click event
Unload Me
Before run the application in the project properties set MDI Form as the start-up Form. Save and
run the application. Following output will be displayed.

And as soon as you click MDI Open you can notice that the main menu of the MDI Form is
replaced with the Menu of the Child Form. The reason for this behavior should be obvious. The
operation available through the MDI Form are quite different from the operations of the child
window. Moreover, each child Form shouldn't have it's own menu.

InputBox Function in Visual Basic 6 (VB6)
Displays a prompt in a dialog box, waits for the user to input text or click a button, and returns a
String containing the contents of the text box.
117

Following is an expanded InputBox

Syntax :
memory_variable = InputBox (prompt[,title][,default])
memory_variable is a variant data type but typically it is declared as string, which accept the
message input by the users. The arguments are explained as follows:
Prompt - String expression displayed as the message in the dialog box. If prompt
consists of more than one line, you can separate the lines using the vbCrLf constant
Title - String expression displayed in the title bar of the dialog box. If you omit the title,
the application name is displayed in the title bar
default-text - The default text that appears in the input field where users can use it as his
intended input or he may change to the message he wish to key in.
x-position and y-position - the position or the coordinate of the input box.
Following example demonstrates the use of InputBox function

* Open a new project and save the Form as InputBox.frm and save the Project as InputBox.vbp
* Design the application as shown below.
Object Property Setting
Form

Caption
Name
InputBox
test
frmInputBox
Label

Caption
Name
You entered
lbl1
Label

Caption
Name
BorderStyle
( empty)
lbl2
1-Fixed
Single
118

CommandButton

Caption
Name
OK
cmdOK

Following code is entered in cmdOK_Click ( ) event
Private Sub cmdok_Click()
Dim ans As String
ans = InputBox("Enter something to be displayed in the label", "Testing", 0)
If ans = "" Then
lbl2.Caption = "No message"
Else
lbl2.Caption = ans
End If
End Sub
Save and run the application. As soon as you click the OK button you will get the following
InputBox

Here I have entered "Hello World" in text field. As soon as you click OK the output is shown as
shown below
119






MessageBox Function in Visual Basic 6 (VB6)
Displays a message in a dialog box and wait for the user to click a button, and returns an integer
indicating which button the user clicked.
Following is an expanded MessageBox

Syntax :
MsgBox ( Prompt [,icons+buttons ] [,title ] )
memory_variable = MsgBox ( prompt [, icons+ buttons] [,title] )
Prompt : String expressions displayed as the message in the dialog box. If prompt consist of
more than one line, you can separate the lines using the vbrCrLf constant.
Icons + Buttons : Numeric expression that is the sum of values specifying the number and type
of buttons and icon to display.
120

Title : String expression displayed in the title bar of the dialog box. If you omit title, the
application name is placed in the title bar.
Icons
Constant Value Description
vbCritical 16 Display Critical message icon
vbQuestion 32 Display Warning Query icon
vbExclamation 48 Display Warning message icon
vbInformation 64 Display information icon
Buttons
Constant Value Description
vbOkOnly 0 Display OK button only
vbOkCancel 1
Display OK and Cancel
buttons
vbAbortRetryIgnore 2
Display Abort, Retry and
Ignore buttons
vbYesNoCancel 3
Display Yes, No and Cancel
buttons
vbYesNo 4 Display Yes and No buttons
vbRetryCancel 5
Display Retry and Cancel
buttons
Return Values
Constant Value Description
vbOk 1 Ok Button
vbCancel 2 Cancel Button
vbAbort 3 Abort Button
vbRetry 4 Retry Button
vbIgnore 5 Ignore Button
vbYes 6 Yes Button
vbNo 7 No Button
Following is an example illustrates the use of message boxes
* Open a new Project and save the Form as messageboxdemo.frm and save the Project as
121

messageboxdemo.vbp
* Design the application as shown below.
Object Property Setting
Form

Caption
Name
MessageBoxDemo
frmMessageBoxDemo
Label

Caption
Name
lblName
Name
TextBox

Name
Text
txtName
( empty )
ListBox Name lstName
CommandButton

Caption
Name
Add
cmdAdd
CommandButton

Caption
Name
Delete
cmdDelete
CommandButton

Caption
Name
Exit
cmdExit

Following code is entered in the txtName_Change ( ) event
Private Sub txtName_Change()
If Len(txtName.Text) > 0 Then
cmdAdd.Enabled = True
End If
122

End Sub
Following code has to be entered in the cmdAdd_Click ( ) event
Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()
answer = MsgBox("Do you want to add this name to the list box?", vbExclamation + vbYesNo,
"Add Confirm")
If answer = vbYes Then
lstName.AddItem txtName.Text
txtName.Text = ""
txtName.SetFocus
cmdAdd.Enabled = False
End If
End Sub
Following code is entered in the cmdDelete_Click ( ) event
Private Sub cmdDelete_Click()
Dim remove As Integer
remove = lstName.ListIndex
If remove < 0 Then
MsgBox "No names is selected", vbInformation, "Error"
Else
answer = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to delete " & vbCrLf & "the selected name?",_
vbCritical + vbYesNo, "Warning")
If answer = vbYes Then
If remove >= 0 Then
lstName.RemoveItem remove
txtName.SetFocus
MsgBox "Selected name was deleted", vbInformation, "Delete Confirm"

End If
End If
End If
End Sub
Following code is entered in the cmdExit_Click ( ) event
Private Sub cmdExit_Click()
answer = MsgBox("Do you want to quit?", vbExclamation + vbYesNo, "Confirm")
If answer = vbYes Then
End
Else
MsgBox "Action canceled", vbInformation, "Confirm"
End If
End Sub
123

Save and run the application. You can notice the different type of message box types are used to
perform an action



Mouse Events In Visual Basic 6
Visual Basic responds to various mouse events, which are recognized by most of the controls. The main
events are MouseDown, MouseUp and MouseMove. MouseDown occurs when the user presses any
mouse button and MouseUp occurs when the user releases any mouse button. These events use the
arguments button, Shift, X, Y and they contain information about the mouse's condition when the
button is clicked.
The first argument is an integer called Button. The value of the argument indicates whether the
left, right or middle mouse button was clicked. The second argument in an integer called shift.
The value of this argumnet indicates whether the mouse button was clicked simultaneously with
the Shift key, Ctrl key or Alt key. The third and fourth arguments X and Y are the coordinates of
the mouse location at the time the mouse button was clicked. As the Form_MouseDown( ) is
executed automatically whenever the mouse button is clicked inside the Form's area the X, Y co-
ordinates are referenced to the form.
Positioning a control
MouseDown is the commonly used event and it is combined wiyth the move method to move an
Image control to different locations in a Form. The following application illustrates the
movement of objects responding to move events. it makes use of two OptionButton Controls,
two image controls and a CommandButton. The application is designed in such a way that when
an OptionButton is selected, the corresponding image control is placed anywhere in the form
whenever it is clicked.
Open a new standard EXE project and save the Form as Move.frm and save the project as
Move.vbp Design the Form as shown below.
Object Property Setting
Form

Caption
Name
MouseDown
frmMouseDown
124

OptionButton


Caption
Name
Value
Credit card is selected
optCredit
True
OptionButton

Caption
Name
Cash is selected
optCash
Image

Name
Picture
imgCredit
c:/credit.jpg
Image

Name
Picture
imgCash
c:/cash.jpg
The follwoing code is entered in the general declarations section of the Form.
Option Explicit
The following code is entered in the Form_MouseDown( ) event
Private Sub Form_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
If optCredit = True Then
imgCredit.Move X, Y
Else
imgCash.Move X, Y
End If
End Sub
Run the application by keying in F5. You can notice that when the mouse is clicked on the form
somewhere, the selected image moves to that clicked location. This is shown in the below figure.

125

Graphical Mouse Application In Visual Basic
6
The mouse events can be combined with graphics methods and any number of customized drawing or
paint applications can be created. The following application combines MouseMove and MouseDown
events, and illustrates a drawing program.
Open a new Standard EXE project and save the Form as Draw.frm and save the Project as
Draw.vbp. Name the caption of the as Drawing. Add command button control and name the
caption of it as Clear
Enter the following code in the Form_MouseDown ( ) procedure, Form_MouseMove ( )
procedure and cmdClear_Click ( ) procedures respectively.
Private Sub cmdClear_Click()
frmDraw.Cls
End Sub
Private Sub Form_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
frmDraw.CurrentX = X
frmDraw.CurrentY = Y
End Sub
Private Sub Form_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
If Button = 1 Then
Line (frmDraw.CurrentX, frmDraw.CurrentY)-(X, Y)
End If
End Sub
Button value 1 indicates that the left mouse button is clicked. The code written in the
MouseDown event changes the CurrentX and CurrentY to the coordinates where the mouse
button was just clicked.
Run the application. You can notice that when the mouse is clicked and moved in the Form a line
is drawn corresponding to the mouse movement. Following figure illustrates the combined action
of MouseDown and MouseMove.
126


The program uses two graphics related Visual Basic concepts, the Line method and the CurrentX
and CurrentY properties. Line method is preferred to draw a line in a Form. The following
statement draws a line from the coordinates X = 2500, Y = 2000, X = 5000, Y = 5500
Line (2500, 2000) - (5000, 5500)
The CurrentX and CurrentY properties are not visible in the properties window of the Form
because it cannot be set at the design time. After using the Line method to draw a line in a Form,
Visual Basic automatically assigns the coordinate of the line's end point to the CurrentX and
CurrentY properties of the Form on which the line is drawn.
( Download the source code )
MouseMove application
Visual Basic does not generate a MouseMove event for every pixel the mouse moves over and a
limited number of mouse messages are generated per second by the operating environment. The
following application illustrates how often the Form_MouseMove ( ) event is executed.
Open a new standard EXE project and save the form as MouseMove.frm and save the Project as
MouseMOve.vbp. Place a CommandButton control and name the caption as Clear and set the
name as cmdClear.
The following code is entered in the cmdClear_Click ( ) and Form_MouseMove ( ) events
respectively.
Private Sub cmdClear_Click()
frmMouseMove.Cls
End Sub
Private Sub Form_MouseMove(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)
Circle (X, Y), 70
End Sub
The above procedure simply draws small circles at the mouse's current location using the Circle
127

method. The parameter x, y represent the centre of the circle, and the second parameter
represents the radius of the circle.
Save the application and run. You can notice that when the mouse is moved inside the Form,
circles are drwan along the path of the mouse movement as shown in below figure. And also you
can notice the circles are widely spaced when the mouse is moved quickly. Each small circle is
an indication that the MouseMove event occured and the Form_MouseMove ( ) procedure was
executed.



Visual Basic 6 -Error handling and
Debugging and File Input/Output
Error Handling enables programmers to write clearer, more robust, more fault-tolerant programs. Error
handling enables the programmer to attempt to recover (i.e., continue executing) from infrequent fatal
errors rather than letting them occur and suffering the consequences (such as loss of application data).
If an error is severe and recovery is not possible, the program can be exited "gracefully"-all files can be
closed and notification can be given that the program is terminating. The recovery code is called an
error handler.
Error handling is designed for dealing with synchronous errors such as an attempt to divide by 0
(that occurs as the program executes the divide instruction). Other common examples of
synchronous errors are memory exhaustion, an out-of-bound array index, and arithmetic
overflow. Error handling provides the programmer with a disciplined set of capabilities for
dealing with these types of errors.
Error-handling code varies in nature and amount among software systems depending on the
128

application and whether or not the software is a product for release. Products tend to contain
much more error-handling code than is contained in "casual" software.
Usually, error-handling code is interspersed throughout a program's code. Errors are dealt with
the places in the code where errors are likely to occur. The advantage of this approach is that a
programmer reading the code can see the error handling in the immediate vicinity of the code
and determine if the proper error handling has been implemented.
The problem with the scheme is that code in a sense becomes "polluted" with error handling. It
becomes difficult for a programmer concerned with the application itself to read the code and
determine if the code is working is correctly. Error handling often makes the code more difficult
to understand and maintain.
When Error Handling should be used
Error handling should be used to process only exceptional situations, despite the fact that there is
nothing to prevent that programmer from using errors as an alternate form of program control.
This lesson explains about error handling and debugging in easy steps with quick examples. For
more in-depth lessons in Error Handling click here
Contents
Error Types
Run-Time Error Trapping and Handling
General Error Handling Procedure
Example - Simple Error Trapping
Debugging Visual Basic Programs
Example - Debugging Example
Using the Debugging Tools
Debugging Strategies
Sequential Files
Sequential File Output (Variables)
Quick Example: Writing Variables to Sequential Files
Sequential File Input (Variables)
129

Quick Example: Reading Variables from Sequential Files
Writing and Reading Text Using Sequential Files
Random Access Files
User-Defined Variables
Writing and Reading Random Access Files
Using the Open and Save Common Dialog Boxes
Example - Note Editor - Reading and Saving Text Files
Exercise - Information Tracking
Exercise - Recent Files Menu Option


Error-Handling, Debugging - Error Types in
Visual Basic 6
No matter how hard we try, errors do creep into our programs. These errors can be grouped into
three categories:
1. Syntax errors
2. Run-time errors
3. Logic errors
Syntax errors occur when you mistype a command or leave out an expected phrase or
argument. Visual Basic detects these errors as they occur and even provides help in correcting
them. You cannot run a Visual Basic program until all syntax errors have been corrected.

Run-time errors are usually beyond your program's control. Examples include: when a variable
takes on an unexpected value (divide by zero), when a drive door is left open, or when a file is
not found. Visual Basic allows you to trap such errors and make attempts to correct them.

Logic errors are the most difficult to find. With logic errors, the program will usually run, but
will produce incorrect or unexpected results. The Visual Basic debugger is an aid in detecting
logic errors.
130

Some ways to minimize errors:

Design your application carefully. More design time means less debugging time.
Use comments where applicable to help you remember what you were trying to do.
Use consistent and meaningful naming conventions for your variables, objects, and
procedures.




Error-Handling, Debugging - Run-Time
Error Trapping and Handling
Run-time errors are trappable. That is, Visual Basic recognizes an error has occurred and
enables you to trap it and take corrective action. If an error occurs and is not trapped, your
program will usually end in a rather unceremonious manner.

Error trapping is enabled with the On Error statement:
On Error GoTo errlabel
Yes, this uses the dreaded GoTo statement! Any time a run-time error occurs following this line,
program control is transferred to the line labeled errlabel. Recall a labeled line is simply a line
with the label followed by a colon (:).
The best way to explain how to use error trapping is to look at an outline of an example
procedure with error trapping.
Sub SubExample()

[Declare variables, ...]

On Error GoTo HandleErrors

[Procedure code]

Exit Sub
HandleErrors:
131


Error handling code]

End Sub
Once you have set up the variable declarations, constant definitions, and any other procedure
preliminaries, the On Error statement is executed to enable error trapping. Your normal
procedure code follows this statement. The error handling code goes at the end of the procedure,
following the HandleErrors statement label. This is the code that is executed if an error is
encountered anywhere in the Sub procedure. Note you must exit (with Exit Sub) from the code
before reaching the HandleErrors line to avoid inadvertent execution of the error handling code.
Since the error handling code is in the same procedure where an error occurs, all variables in
that procedure are available for possible corrective action. If at some time in your procedure, you
want to turn off error trapping, that is done with the following statement:
On Error GoTo 0
Once a run-time error occurs, we would like to know what the error is and attempt to fix it.
This is done in the error handling code.
Visual Basic offers help in identifying run-time errors. The Err object returns, in its Number
property (Err.Number), the number associated with the current error condition. (The Err function
has other useful properties that we wont cover here - consult on-line help for further
information.) The Error() function takes this error number as its argument and returns a string
description of the error. Consult on-line help for Visual Basic run-time error numbers and their
descriptions.
Once an error has been trapped and some action taken, control must be returned to your
application. That control is returned via the Resume statement. There are three options:
Resume Lets you retry the operation that caused the error. That is, control is returned to the line
where the error occurred. This could be dangerous in that, if the error has not been corrected (via
code or by the user), an infinite loop between the error handler and the procedure code may
result.
Resume Next Program control is returned to the line immediately following the line where the
error occurred.
Resume label Program control is returned to the line labeled label.
Be careful with the Resume statement. When executing the error handling portion of the code
and the end of the procedure is encountered before a Resume, an error occurs. Likewise, if a
Resume is encountered outside of the error handling portion of the code, an error occurs.

132

Error-Handling, Debugging - General Error
Handling Procedure (VB6)
Development of an adequate error handling procedure is application dependent. You need to
know what type of errors you are looking for and what corrective actions must be taken if these
errors are encountered. For example, if a 'divide by zero' is found, you need to decide whether to
skip the operation or do something to reset the offending denominator.

What we develop here is a generic framework for an error handling procedure. It simply
informs the user that an error has occurred, provides a description of the error, and allows the
user to Abort, Retry, or Ignore. This framework is a good starting point for designing custom
error handling for your applications.

The generic code (begins with label HandleErrors) is:
HandleErrors:
Select Case MsgBox(Error(Err.Number), vbCritical + vbAbortRetryIgnore, "Error Number" +
Str(Err.Number))

Case vbAbort
Resume ExitLine
Case vbRetry
Resume
Case vbIgnore
Resume Next

End Select
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
Lets look at what goes on here. First, this routine is only executed when an error occurs. A
message box is displayed, using the Visual Basic provided error description [Error(Err.Number)]
as the message, uses a critical icon along with the Abort, Retry, and Ignore buttons, and uses the
error number [Err.Number] as the title. This message box returns a response indicating which
button was selected by the user.
If Abort is selected, we simply exit the procedure. (This is done using a Resume to the line
labeled ExitLine. Recall all error trapping must be terminated with a Resume statement of some
kind.)
If Retry is selected, the offending program line is retried (in a real application, you or the user
would have to change something here to correct the condition causing the error).
If Ignore is selected, program operation continues with the line following the error causing line.
133

To use this generic code in an existing procedure, you need to do three things:
1.
1.
1. Copy and paste the error handling code into the end of your procedure.
2.
3. Place an Exit Sub line immediately preceding the HandleErrors labeled line.
4.
5. Place the line, On Error GoTo HandleErrors, at the beginning of your procedure.
For example, if your procedure is the SubExample seen earlier, the modified code will look like
this:
Sub SubExample()
.
. [Declare variables, ...]
.
On Error GoTo HandleErrors
.
. [Procedure code]
.
Exit Sub
HandleErrors:
Select Case MsgBox(Error(Err.Number), vbCritical + vbAbortRetryIgnore, "Error Number" +
Str(Err.Number))
Case vbAbort
Resume ExitLine
Case vbRetry
Resume
Case vbIgnore
Resume Next

End Select
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub
Again, this is a very basic error-handling routine. You must determine its utility in your
applications and make any modifications necessary. Specifically, you need code to clear error
conditions before using the Retry option.

One last thing. Once you've written an error handling routine, you need to test it to make sure it
works properly. But, creating run-time errors is sometimes difficult and perhaps dangerous.
Visual Basic comes to the rescue! The Visual Basic Err object has a method (Raise) associated
134

with it that simulates the occurrence of a run-time error. To cause an error with value Number,
use:

Err.Raise Number

We can use this function to completely test the operation of any error handler we write. Dont
forget to remove the Raise statement once testing is completed, though! And, to really get fancy,
you can also use Raise to generate your own application-defined errors. There are errors
specific to your application that you want to trap.

To clear an error condition (any error, not just ones generated with the Raise method), use the
method Clear:
Err.Clear


Error-Handling, Debugging - Example -
Simple Error Trapping
1. Start a new project. Add a text box and a command button.

2. Set the properties of the form and each control:

Form1:
BorderStyle - 1-Fixed Single
Caption - Error Generator
Name frmError

Command1:
Caption - Generate Error
Default - True
Name - cmdGenError

Text1:
Name - txtError
Text - [Blank]

The form should look something like this:

135



3. Attach this code to the cmdGenError_Click event.

Private Sub cmdGenError_Click()
On Error GoTo HandleErrors
Err.Raise Val(txtError.Text)
Err.Clear
Exit Sub

HandleErrors:
Select Case MsgBox(Error(Err.Number), vbCritical + vbAbortRetryIgnore, "Error Number" +
Str(Err.Number))

Case vbAbort
Resume ExitLine
Case vbRetry
Resume
Case vbIgnore
Resume Next
End Select

ExitLine:

Exit Sub
End Sub

In this code, we simply generate an error using the number input in the text box. The generic
error handler then displays a message box which you can respond to in one of three ways.

4. Save your application. Try it out using some of these typical error numbers (or use numbers
found with on-line help). Notice how program control changes depending on which button is
clicked.
Error Number Error Description

6 Overflow
9 Subscript out of range
11 Division by zero
136

13 Type mismatch
16 Expression too complex
20 Resume without error
52 Bad file name or number
53 File not found
55 File already open
61 Disk full
70 Permission denied
92 For loop not initialized


Error-Handling, Debugging - Debugging
Visual Basic Programs
We now consider the search for, and elimination of, logic errors. These are errors that dont
prevent an application from running, but cause incorrect or unexpected results. Visual Basic
provides an excellent set of debugging tools to aid in this search.
Debugging a code is an art, not a science. There are no prescribed processes that you can
follow to eliminate all logic errors in your program. The usual approach is to eliminate them as
they are discovered.
What well do here is present the debugging tools available in the Visual Basic environment
(several of which appear as buttons on the toolbar) and describe their use with an example. You,
as the program designer, should select the debugging approach and tools you feel most
comfortable with.
The interface between your application and the debugging tools is via three different debug
windows: the Immediate Window, the Locals Window, and the Watch Window. These windows
can be accessed from the View menu (the Immediate Window can be accessed by pressing
Ctrl+G). Or, they can be selected from the Debug Toolbar (accessed using the Toolbars option
under the View menu):


137

All debugging using the debug windows is done when your application is in break mode. You
can enter break mode by setting breakpoints, pressing Ctrl+Break, or the program will go into
break mode if it encounters an untrapped error or a Stop statement.
Once in break mode, the debug windows and other tools can be used to:
1. Determine values of variables
2. Set breakpoints
3. Set watch variables and expressions
4. Manually control the application
5. Determine which procedures have been called
6. Change the values of variables and properties
Example - Debugging
1. Unlike other examples, well do this one as a group. It will be used to demonstrate use of the
debugging tools.
2. The example simply has a form with a single command button. The button is used to execute
some code. We wont be real careful about proper naming conventions and such in this example.

3. The code attached to this buttons Click event is a simple loop that evaluates a function at
several values.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim X As Integer, Y As Integer
X = 0
Do
Y = Fcn(X)
X = X + 1
Loop While X <= 20
End Sub
This code begins with an X value of 0 and computes the Y value using the general integer
function Fcn. It then increments X by 1 and repeats the Loop. It continues looping While X is
less than or equal to 20. The function Fcn is computed using:
Function Fcn(X As Integer) As Integer
Fcn = CInt(0.1 * X ^ 2)
End Function
138

Admittedly, this code doesnt do much, especially without any output, but it makes a good
example for looking at debugger use. Set up the application and get ready to try debugging.



Using the Debugging Tools
There are several debugging tools available for use in Visual Basic. Access to these tools is provided
with both menu options and buttons on the Debug toolbar. These tools include breakpoints, watch
points, calls, step

The simplest tool is the use of direct prints to the immediate window.
Printing to the Immediate Window:

You can print directly to the immediate window while an application is running. Sometimes, this
is all the debugging you may need. A few carefully placed print statements can sometimes clear
up all logic errors, especially in small applications.
To print to the immediate window, use the Print method:
Debug.Print [List of variables separated by commas or semi-colons]
Debug.Print Example:
1. Place the following statement in the Command1_Click procedure after the line calling the
general procedure Fcn:

Debug.Print X; Y

and run the application.
2. Examine the immediate window. Note how, at each iteration of the loop, the program
prints the value of X and Y. You could use this information to make sure X is
incrementing correctly and that Y values look acceptable.
3. Remove the Debug.Print statement.
139

Breakpoints:

In the above examples, the program ran to completion before we could look at the debug
window. In many applications, we want to stop the application while it is running, examine
variables and then continue running. This can be done with breakpoints.
A breakpoint is a line in the code where you want to stop (temporarily) the execution of the
program, that is force the program into break mode. To set a breakpoint, put the cursor in the line
of code you want to break on. Then, press <F9> or click the Breakpoint button on the toolbar or
select Toggle Breakpoint from the Debug menu. The line will be highlighted.
When you run your program, Visual Basic will stop when it reaches lines with breakpoints and
allow you to use the immediate window to check variables and expressions. To continue
program operation after a breakpoint, press <F5>, click the Run button on the toolbar, or choose
Start from the Run menu.
You can also change variable values using the immediate window. Simply type a valid Basic
expression. This can sometimes be dangerous, though, as it may change program operation
completely.
Breakpoint Example:
1. Set a breakpoint on the X = X + 1 line in the sample program. Run the program.
2. When the program stops, display the immediate window and type the following line:

Print X;Y
3. The values of these two variables will appear in the debug window. You can use a
question mark (?) as shorthand for the command Print, if youd like. Restart the
application. Print the new variable values.
4. Try other breakpoints if you have time. Once done, all breakpoints can be cleared by
Ctrl+Shift+<F9> or by choosing Clear All Breakpoints from the Debug menu. Individual
breakpoints can be toggled using <F9> or the Breakpoint button on the toolbar.
Viewing Variables in the Locals Window:

The locals window shows the value of any variables within the scope of the current procedure.
As execution switches from procedure to procedure, the contents of this window changes to
reflect only the variables applicable to the current procedure. Repeat the above example and
notice the values of X and Y also appear in the locals window.
140

Watch Expressions:

The Add Watch option on the Debug menu allows you to establish watch expressions for your
application. Watch expressions can be variable values or logical expressions you want to view or
test. Values of watch expressions are displayed in the watch window.
In break mode, you can use the Quick Watch button on the toolbar to add watch expressions you
need. Simply put the cursor on the variable or expression you want to add to the watch list and
click the Quick Watch button.
Watch expressions can be edited using the Edit Watch option on the Debug menu.
Watch Expression Example:
1. Set a breakpoint at the X = X + 1 line in the example.
2. Set a watch expression for the variable X. Run the application. Notice X appears in the
watch window. Every time you re-start the application, the value of X changes.
3. At some point in the debug procedure, add a quick watch on Y. Notice it is now in the
watch window.
4. Clear the breakpoint. Add a watch on the expression: X = Y. Set Watch Type to Break
When Value Is True. Run the application. Notice it goes into break mode and displays
the watch window whenever X = Y. Delete this last watch expression.
Call Stack:

Selecting the Call Stack button from the toolbar (or pressing Ctrl+L or selecting Call Stack from
the View menu) will display all active procedures, that is those that have not been exited.
Call Stack helps you unravel situations with nested procedure calls to give you some idea of
where you are in the application.
Call Stack Example:
1. Set a breakpoint on the Fcn = Cint() line in the general function procedure. Run the
application. It will break at this line.
2. Press the Call Stack button. It will indicate you are currently in the Fcn procedure which
was called from the Command1_Click procedure. Clear the breakpoint.
141

Single Stepping (Step Into):

While at a breakpoint, you may execute your program one line at a time by pressing <F8>,
choosing the Step Into option in the Debug menu, or by clicking the Step Into button on the
toolbar.
This process is single stepping. It allows you to watch how variables change (in the locals
window) or how your form changes, one step at a time.
You may step through several lines at a time by using Run To Cursor option. With this option,
click on a line below your current point of execution. Then press Ctrl+<F8> (or choose Run To
Cursor in the Debug menu). the program will run through every line up to the cursor location,
then stop.
Step Into Example:
1. Set a breakpoint on the Do line in the example. Run the application.
2. When the program breaks, use the Step Into button to single step through the program.
3. At some point, put the cursor on the Loop While line. Try the Run To Cursor option
(press Ctrl+<F8>).
Procedure Stepping (Step Over):

While single stepping your program, if you come to a procedure call you know functions
properly, you can perform procedure stepping. This simply executes the entire procedure at once,
rather than one step at a time.
To move through a procedure in this manner, press Shift+<F8>, choose Step Over from the
Debug menu, or press the Step Over button on the toolbar.
Step Over Example:
1. Run the previous example. Single step through it a couple of times.
2. One time through, when you are at the line calling the Fcn function, press the Step Over
button. Notice how the program did not single step through the function as it did
previously.
Function Exit (Step Out):

142

While stepping through your program, if you wish to complete the execution of a function you
are in, without stepping through it line-by-line, choose the Step Out option. The function will be
completed and you will be returned to the procedure accessing that function.
To perform this step out, press Ctrl+Shift+<F8>, choose Step Out from the Debug menu, or
press the Step Out button on the toolbar. Try this on the previous example.


Debugging Strategies
Weve looked at each debugging tool briefly. Be aware this is a cursory introduction. Use the
on-line help to delve into the details of each tool described. Only through lots of use and practice
can you become a proficient debugger. There are some guidelines to doing a good job, though.
My first suggestion is: keep it simple. Many times, you only have one or two bad lines of code.
And you, knowing your code best, can usually quickly narrow down the areas with bad lines.
Dont set up some elaborate debugging procedure if you havent tried a simple approach to find
your error(s) first. Many times, just a few intelligently-placed Debug.Print statements or a few
examinations of the immediate and locals windows can solve your problem.
A tried and true approach to debugging can be called Divide and Conquer. If youre not sure
where your error is, guess somewhere in the middle of your application code. Set a breakpoint
there. If the error hasnt shown up by then, you know its in the second half of your code. If it
has shown up, its in the first half. Repeat this division process until youve narrowed your
search.
And, of course, the best debugging strategy is to be careful when you first design and write
your application to minimize searching for errors later.


Sequential Files
In many applications, it is helpful to have the capability to read and write information to a disk
file. This information could be some computed data or perhaps information loaded into a Visual
Basic object.

Visual Basic supports two primary file formats: sequential and random access. We first look at
sequential files.
143


A sequential file is a line-by-line list of data. You can view a sequential file with any text
editor. When using sequential files, you must know the order in which information was written
to the file to allow proper reading of the file.

Sequential files can handle both text data and variable values. Sequential access is best when
dealing with files that have lines with mixed information of different lengths. I use them to
transfer data between applications.


Sequential File Output (Variables)
We first look at writing values of variables to sequential files. The first step is to Open a file to
write information to. The syntax for opening a sequential file for output is:
Open SeqFileName For Output As #N
where SeqFileName is the name of the file to open and N is an integer file number. The filename
must be a complete path to the file.
When done writing to the file, Close it using:
Close N
Once a file is closed, it is saved on the disk under the path and filename used to open the file.
Information is written to a sequential file one line at a time. Each line of output requires a
separate Basic statement.
There are two ways to write variables to a sequential file. The first uses the Write statement:
Write #N, [variable list]
where the variable list has variable names delimited by commas. (If the variable list is omitted, a
blank line is printed to the file.) This statement will write one line of information to the file, that
line containing the variables specified in the variable list. The variables will be delimited by
commas and any string variables will be enclosed in quotes. This is a good format for exporting
files to other applications like Excel.
Example
144

Dim A As Integer, B As String, C As Single, D As Integer
.
.
Open TestOut For Output As #1
Write #1, A, B, C
Write #1, D
Close 1
After this code runs, the file TestOut will have two lines. The first will have the variables A, B,
and C, delimited by commas, with B (a string variable) in quotes. The second line will simply
have the value of the variable D.
The second way to write variables to a sequential file is with the Print statement:
Print #N, [variable list]
This statement will write one line of information to the file, that line containing the variables
specified in the variable list. (If the variable list is omitted, a blank line will be printed.) If the
variables in the list are separated with semicolons (;), they are printed with a single space
between them in the file. If separated by commas (,), they are spaced in wide columns. Be
careful using the Print statement with string variables. The Print statement does not enclose
string variables in quotes, hence, when you read such a variable back in, Visual Basic may have
trouble knowing where a string ends and begins. Its good practice to tack on quotes to string
variables when using Print.
Example
Dim A As Integer, B As String, C As Single, D As Integer
.
.
Open TestOut For Output As #1
Print #1, A; Chr(34) + B + Chr(34), C
Print #1, D
Close 1
After this code runs, the file TestOut will have two lines. The first will have the variables A, B,
and C, delimited by spaces. B will be enclosed by quotes [Chr(34)]. The second line will simply
have the value of the variable D.
Quick Example: Writing Variables to Sequential Files
1. Start a new project.
2. Attach the following code to the Form_Load procedure. This code simply writes a few
variables to sequential files.

Private Sub Form_Load()
145

Dim A As Integer, B As String, C As Single, D As Integer
A = 5
B = "Visual Basic"
C = 2.15
D = -20
Open "Test1.Txt" For Output As #1
Open "Test2.Txt" For Output As #2
Write #1, A, B, C
Write #1, D
Print #2, A, B, C
Print #2, D
Close 1
Close 2
End Sub
3. Run the program. Use a text editor (try the Windows 95 Notepad) to examine the
contents of the two files, Test1.Txt and Test2.Txt. They are probably in the Visual Basic
main directory. Note the difference in the two files, especially how the variables are
delimited and the fact that the string variable is not enclosed in quotes in Test2.Txt. Save
the application, if you want to
Sequential File Input (Variables)
To read variables from a sequential file, we essentially reverse the write procedure. First, open
the file using:

Open SeqFileName For Input As #N

where N is an integer file number and SeqFileName is a complete file path. The file is closed
using:

Close N

The Input statement is used to read in variables from a sequential file. The format is:

Input #N, [variable list]

The variable names in the list are separated by commas. If no variables are listed, the current line
in the file N is skipped.

Note variables must be read in exactly the same manner as they were written. So, using our
previous example with the variables A, B, C, and D, the appropriate statements are:

Input #1, A, B, C
Input #1, D

146

These two lines read the variables A, B, and C from the first line in the file and D from the
second line. It doesnt matter whether the data was originally written to the file using Write or
Print (i.e. commas are ignored).

Quick Example: Reading Variables from Sequential Files
1. Start a new project or simply modify the previous quick example.
2. Attach the following code to the Form_Load procedure. This code reads in files created
in the last quick example.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim A As Integer, B As String, C As Single, D As Integer
Open "Test1.Txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, A, B, C
Debug.Print "A="; A
Debug.Print "B="; B
Debug.Print "C="; C
Input #1, D
Debug.Print "D="; D
Close 1
End Sub

Note the Debug.Print statements and how you can add some identifiers (in quotes) for
printed information.
3. Run the program. Look in the debug window and note the variable values. Save the
application, if you want to.
4. Rerun the program using Test2.Txt as in the input file. What differences do you see? Do
you see the problem with using Print and string variables? Because of this problem, I
almost always use Write (instead of Print) for saving variable information to files. Edit
the Test2.Txt file (in Notepad), putting quotes around the words Visual Basic. Rerun the
program using this file as input - it should work fine now.
Writing and Reading Text Using Sequential
Files
In many applications, we would like to be able to save text information and retrieve it for later
reference. This information could be a text file created by an application or the contents of a Visual Basic
text box.
147

Writing Text Files:
To write a sequential text file, we follow the simple procedure: open the file, write the file, close
the file. If the file is a line-by-line text file, each line of the file is written to disk using a single
Print statement:
Print #N, Line
where Line is the current line (a text string). This statement should be in a loop that encompasses
all lines of the file. You must know the number of lines in your file, beforehand.
If we want to write the contents of the Text property of a text box named txtExample to a file, we
use:
Print #N, txtExample.Text
Example
We have a text box named txtExample. We want to save the contents of the Text property of that
box in a file named MyText.ned on the c: drive in the \MyFiles directory. The code to do this is:
Open c:\MyFiles\MyText.ned For Output As #1
Print #1, txtExample.Text
Close 1
The text is now saved in the file for later retrieval.
Reading Text Files:
To read the contents of a previously-saved text file, we follow similar steps to the writing
process: open the file, read the file, close the file. If the file is a text file, we read each individual
line with the Line Input command:
Line Input #1, Line
This line is usually placed in a Do/Loop structure that is repeated untill all lines of the file are
read in. The EOF() function can be used to detect an end-of-file condition, if you dont know, a
prioiri, how many lines are in the file.
To place the contents of a file opened with number N into the Text property of a text box named
txtExample we use the Input function:
txtExample.Text = Input(LOF(N), N)
This Input function has two arguments: LOF(N), the length of the file opened as N and N, the
file number.
148

Example
We have a file named MyText.ned stored on the c: drive in the \MyFiles directory. We want to
read that text file into the text property of a text box named txtExample. The code to do this is:

Open c:\MyFiles\MyText.ned For Input As #1
txtExample.Text = Input(LOF(1), 1)
Close 1

The text in the file will now be displayed in the text box.
Random Access Files
Note that to access a particular data item in a sequential file, you need to read in all items in the
file prior to the item of interest. This works acceptably well for small data files of unstructured
data, but for large, structured files, this process is time-consuming and wasteful. Sometimes, we
need to access data in nonsequential ways. Files which allow nonsequential access are random
access files.
To allow nonsequential access to information, a random access file has a very definite
structure. A random access file is made up of a number of records, each record having the same
length (measured in bytes). Hence, by knowing the length of each record, we can easily
determine (or the computer can) where each record begins. The first record in a random access
file is Record 1, not 0 as used in Visual Basic arrays. Each record is usually a set of variables, of
different types, describing some item. The structure of a random access file is:

A good analogy to illustrate the differences between sequential files and random access files
are cassette music tapes and compact discs. To hear a song on a tape (a sequential device), you
must go past all songs prior to your selection. To hear a song on a CD (a random access device),
you simply go directly to the desired selection. One difference here though is we require all of
our random access records to be the same length - not a good choice on CDs!
149

To write and read random access files, we must know the record length in bytes. Some variable
types and their length in bytes are:
Type Length (Bytes)
Integer 2
Long 4
Single 4
Double 8
String 1 byte per character
So, for every variable that is in a files record, we need to add up the individual variable lengths
to obtain the total record length. To ease this task, we introduce the idea of user-defined
variables.
User-Defined Variables
Data used with random access files is most often stored in user-defined variables. These data
types group variables of different types into one assembly with a single, user-defined type
associated with the group. Such types significantly simplify the use of random access files.
The Visual Basic keyword Type signals the beginning of a user-defined type declaration and
the words End Type signal the end. An example best illustrates establishing a user-defined
variable. Say we want to use a variable that describes people by their name, their city, their
height, and their weight. We would define a variable of Type Person as follows:
Type Person
Name As String
City As String
Height As Integer
Weight As Integer
End Type
These variable declarations go in the same code areas as normal variable declarations, depending
on desired scope. At this point, we have not reserved any storage for the data. We have simply
described to Visual Basic the layout of the data.
To create variables with this newly defined type, we employ the usual Dim statement. For our
Person example, we would use:
Dim Lou As Person
Dim John As Person
Dim Mary As Person
150

And now, we have three variables, each containing all the components of the variable type
Person. To refer to a single component within a user-defined type, we use the dot-notation:
VarName.Component
As an example, to obtain Lous Age, we use:
Dim AgeValue as Integer
.
.
AgeValue = Lou.Age
Note the similarity to dot-notation weve been using to set properties of various Visual Basic
tools.
Writing and Reading Random Access Files
We look at writing and reading random access files using a user-defined variable. For other
variable types, refer to Visual Basic on-line help. To open a random access file named
RanFileName, use:
Open RanFileName For Random As #N Len = RecordLength
where N is an available file number and RecordLength is the length of each record. Note you
dont have to specify an input or output mode. With random access files, as long as theyre open,
you can write or read to them.
To close a random access file, use:
Close N
As mentioned previously, the record length is the sum of the lengths of all variables that make
up a record. A problem arises with String type variables. You dont know their lengths ahead of
time. To solve this problem, Visual Basic lets you declare fixed lengths for strings. This allows
you to determine record length. If we have a string variable named StrExample we want to limit
to 14 characters, we use the declaration:
Dim StrExample As String * 14
Recall each character in a string uses 1 byte, so the length of such a variable is 14 bytes.
Recall our example user-defined variable type, Person. Lets revisit it, now with restricted
string lengths:
151

Type Person
Name As String * 40
City As String * 35
Height As Integer
Weight As Integer
End Type
The record length for this variable type is 79 bytes (40 + 35 +2 + 2). To open a file named
PersonData as File #1, with such records, we would use the statement:
Open PersonData For Random As #1 Len = 79
The Get and Put statements are used to read from and write to random access files,
respectively. These statements read or write one record at a time. The syntax for these statements
is simple:
Get #N, [RecordNumber], variable
Put #N, [RecordNumber], variable
The Get statement reads from the file and stores data in the variable, whereas the Put statement
writes the contents of the specified variable to the file. In each case, you can optionally specifiy
the record number. If you do not specify a record number, the next sequential position is used.
The variable argument in the Get and Put statements is usually a single user-defined variable.
Once read in, you obtain the component parts of this variable using dot-notation. Prior to writing
a user-defined variable to a random access file, you load the component parts using the same
dot-notation.
Theres a lot more to using random access files; weve only looked at the basics. Refer to your
Visual Basic documentation and on-line help for further information. In particular, you need to
do a little cute programming when deleting records from a random access file or when
resorting records.
Using the Open and Save Common Dialog
Boxes
Note to both write and read sequential and random access files, we need a file name for the
Open statement. To ensure accuracy and completeness, it is suggested that common dialog boxes
be used to get this file name information from the user. Ill provide you with a couple of code
segments that do just that. Both segments assume you have a common dialog box on your form
named cdlFiles, with the CancelError property set equal to True. With this property True, an
error is generated by Visual Basic when the user presses the Cancel button in the dialog box. By
152

trapping this error, it allows an elegant exit from the dialog box when canceling the operation is
desired.
The code segment to obtain a file name (MyFileName with default extension Ext) for opening a
file to read is:
Dim MyFileName As String, Ext As String
.
.
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*." + Ext + ")|*." + Ext
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = Ext
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Open File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNFileMustExist + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Open
cdlFiles.ShowOpen
MyFileName = cdlFiles.filename
.
.
Exit Sub
No_Open:
Resume ExitLIne
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub
A few words on whats going on here. First, some properties are set such that only files with Ext
(a three letter string variable) extensions are displayed (Filter property), the default extension is
Ext (DefaultExt property), the title bar is set (DialogTitle property), and some Flags are set to
insure the file and path exist (see Appendix II for more common dialog flags).
Error trapping is enabled to trap the Cancel button. Finally, the common dialog box is displayed
and the filename property returns with the desired name. That name is put in the string variable
MyFileName. What you do after obtaining the file name depends on what type of file you are
dealing with. For sequential files, you would open the file, read in the information, and close the
file. For random access files, we just open the file here. Reading and writing to/from the file
would be handled elsewhere in your coding.
The code segment to retrieve a file name (MyFileName) for writing a file is:
Dim MyFileName As String, Ext As String
.
.
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*." + Ext + ")|*." + Ext
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = Ext
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Save File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNOverwritePrompt + cdlOFNPathMustExist
153

On Error GoTo No_Save
cdlFiles.ShowSave
MyFileName = cdlFiles.filename
.
.
Exit Sub
No_Save:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub
Note this code is essentially the same used for an Open file name. The Flags property differs
slightly. The user is prompted if a previously saved file is selected for overwrite. After obtaining
a valid file name for a sequential file, we would open the file for output, write the file, and close
it. For a random access file, things are trickier.
If we want to save the file with the same name we opened it with, we simply close the file. If the
name is different, we must open a file (using a different number) with the new name, write the
complete random access file, then close it. Like I said, its trickier.
We use both of these code segments in the final example where we write and read sequential
files.
Example - Note Editor - Reading and Saving
Text Files
1. We now add the capability to read in and save the contents of the text box in the Note
Editor application from last class. Load that application. Add a common dialog box to
your form. Name it cdlFiles and set the CancelError property to True.
2. Modify the File menu (use the Menu Editor and the Insert button) in your application,
such that Open and Save options are included. The File menu should now read:

File
New
Open
Save

Exit

Properties for these new menu items should be:

Caption Name Shortcut
154


&Open mnuFileOpen [None]
&Save mnuFileSave [None]
3. The two new menu options need code. Attach this code to the mnuFileOpen_Click event.
This uses a modified version of the code segment seen previously. We assign the
extension ned to our note editor files.

Private Sub mnuFileOpen_Click()
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.ned)|*.ned"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "ned"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Open File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNFileMustExist + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Open
cdlFiles.ShowOpen
Open cdlFiles.filename For Input As #1
txtEdit.Text = Input(LOF(1), 1)
Close 1
Exit Sub
No_Open:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub

And for the mnuFileSave_Click procedure, use this code. Much of this can be copied
from the previous procedure.

Private Sub mnuFileSave_Click()
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.ned)|*.ned"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "ned"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Save File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNOverwritePrompt + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Save
cdlFiles.ShowSave
Open cdlFiles.filename For Output As #1
Print #1, txtEdit.Text
Close 1
Exit Sub
No_Save:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub

Each of these procedures is similar. The dialog box is opened and, if a filename is
155

returned, the file is read/written. If Cancel is pressed, no action is taken. These routines
can be used as templates for file operations in other applications.
4. Save your application. Run it and test the Open and Save functions. Note you have to
save a file before you can open one. Check for proper operation of the Cancel button in
the common dialog box.
5. If you have the time, there is one major improvement that should be made to this
application. Notice that, as written, only the text information is saved, not the formatting
(bold, italic, underline, size). Whenever a file is opened, the text is displayed based on
current settings. It would be nice to save formatting information along with the text. This
can be done, but it involves a fair amount of reprogramming. Suggested steps:

A. Add lines to the mnuFileSave_Click routine that write the text box properties
FontBold, FontItalic, FontUnderline, and FontSize to a separate sequential file. If your
text file is named TxtFile.ned, I would suggest naming the formatting file TxtFile.fmt.
Use string functions to put this name together. That is, chop the ned extension off the text
file name and tack on the fmt extension. Youll need the Len() and Left() functions.

B. Add lines to the mnuFileOpen_Click routine that read the text box properties
FontBold, FontItalic, FontUnderline, and FontSize from your format sequential file.
Youll need to define some intermediate variables here because Visual Basic wont allow
you to read properties directly from a file. Youll also need logic to set/reset any check
marks in the menu structure to correspond to these input properties.

C. Add lines to the mnuFileNew_Click procedure that, when the user wants a new file,
reset the text box properties FontBold, FontItalic, FontUnderline, and FontSize to their
default values and set/reset the corresponding menu check marks.

D. Try out the modified application. Make sure every new option works as it should.

Actually, there are custom tools (well look at custom tools in Class 10) that do what
we are trying to do with this modification, that is save text box contents with formatting
information. Such files are called rich text files or rtf files. You may have seen these
before when transferring files from one word processor to another.
6. Another thing you could try: Modify the message box that appears when you try to Exit.
Make it ask if you wish to save your file before exiting - provide Yes, No, Cancel
buttons. Program the code corresponding to each possible response. Use calls to existing
procedures, if possible.
1.7. Exercise - Information Tracking
8. Design and develop an application that allows the user to enter (on a daily basis) some
piece of information that is to be saved for future review and reference. Examples could
be stock price, weight, or high temperature for the day. The input screen should display
the current date and an input box for the desired information. all values should be saved
on disk for future retrieval and update. A scroll bar should be available for reviewing all
previously-stored values.
9. My Solution:
156

10. Form:
11.
12. Properties:
13. Form frmWeight:
BorderStyle = 1 - Fixed Single
Caption = Weight Program
14. VScrollBar vsbControl:
Min = 1
Value = 1
15.
TextBox txtWeight:
Alignment = 2 - Center
FontName = MS Sans Serif
FontSize = 13.5
16. Label lblFile:
BackColor = &H0000FFFF& (White)
BorderStyle = 1 - Fixed Single
Caption = New File
FontName = MS Sans Serif
FontBold = True
FontItalic = True
FontSize = 8.25
17. Label lblDate:
Alignment = 2 - Center
BackColor = &H00FFFFFF& (White)
BorderStyle = 1 - Fixed Single
FontName = MS Sans Serif
FontSize = 13.5
18. Label Label2:
Alignment = 2 - Center
Caption = Weight
FontName = MS Sans Serif
FontSize = 13.5
FontBold = True
19. Label Label1:
Alignment = 2 - Center
Caption = Date
FontName = MS Sans Serif
157

FontSize = 13.5
FontBold = True
20. CommonDialog cdlFiles:
CancelError = True
21. Menu mnuFile:
Caption = &File
22. Menu mnuFileNew:
Caption = &New
23.
Menu mnuFileOpen:
Caption = &Open
24. Menu mnuFileSave:
Caption = &Save
25. Menu mnuLine:
Caption = -
26. Menu mnuFileExit:
Caption = E&xit
27. Code:
28. General Declarations:
29. Option Explicit
Dim Dates(1000) As Date
Dim Weights(1000) As String
Dim NumWts As Integer
30. Init General Procedure:
31. Sub Init()
NumWts = 1: vsbControl.Value = 1: vsbControl.Max = 1
Dates(1) = Format(Now, "mm/dd/yy")
Weights(1) = ""
lblDate.Caption = Dates(1)
txtWeight.Text = Weights(1)
lblFile.Caption = "New File"
End Sub
32. Form Load Event:
33. Private Sub Form_Load()
frmWeight.Show
Call Init
End Sub
34. mnufileExit Click Event:
35. Private Sub mnuFileExit_Click()
'Make sure user really wants to exit
Dim Response As Integer
Response = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to exit the weight program?", vbYesNo +
vbCritical + vbDefaultButton2, "Exit Editor")
If Response = vbNo Then
Exit Sub
Else
158

End
End If
End Sub
36. mnuFileNew Click Event:
37. Private Sub mnuFileNew_Click()
'User wants new file
Dim Response As Integer
Response = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to start a new file?", vbYesNo +
vbQuestion, "New File")
If Response = vbNo Then
Exit Sub
Else
Call Init
End If
End Sub
38. mnuFileOpen Click Event:
39. Private Sub mnuFileOpen_Click()
Dim I As Integer
Dim Today As Date
Dim Response As Integer
Response = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to open a new file?", vbYesNo +
vbQuestion, "New File")
If Response = vbNo Then Exit Sub
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.wgt)|*.wgt"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "wgt"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Open File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNFileMustExist + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Open
cdlFiles.ShowOpen
Open cdlFiles.filename For Input As #1
lblFile.Caption = cdlFiles.filename
Input #1, NumWts
For I = 1 To NumWts
Input #1, Dates(I), Weights(I)
Next I
Close 1
Today = Format(Now, "mm/dd/yy")
If Today <> Dates(NumWts) Then
NumWts = NumWts + 1
Dates(NumWts) = Today
Weights(NumWts) = ""
End If
vsbControl.Max = NumWts
vsbControl.Value = NumWts
lblDate.Caption = Dates(NumWts)
txtWeight.Text = Weights(NumWts)
159

Exit Sub
No_Open:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub
40. mnuFileSave Click Event:
41. Private Sub mnuFileSave_Click()
Dim I As Integer
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.wgt)|*.wgt"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "wgt"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Save File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNOverwritePrompt + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Save
cdlFiles.ShowSave
Open cdlFiles.filename For Output As #1
lblFile.Caption = cdlFiles.filename
Write #1, NumWts
For I = 1 To NumWts
Write #1, Dates(I), Weights(I)
Next I
Close 1
Exit Sub
No_Save:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub
42. txtWeight Change Event:
43. Private Sub txtWeight_Change()
Weights(vsbControl.Value) = txtWeight.Text
End Sub
44. txtWeight KeyPress Event:
45. Private Sub txtWeight_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
If KeyAscii >= vbKey0 And KeyAscii <= vbKey9 Then
Exit Sub
Else
KeyAscii = 0
End If
End Sub
46. vsbControl Change Event:
47. Private Sub vsbControl_Change()
lblDate.Caption = Dates(vsbControl.Value)
txtWeight.Text = Weights(vsbControl.Value)
txtWeight.SetFocus
End Sub
160

2.48. Exercise - Recent Files Menu Option
49. Under the File menu on nearly every application (that opens files) is a list of the four
most recently-used files (usually right above the Exit option). Modify your information
tracker to implement such a feature. This is not trivial -- there are lots of things to
consider.
50. For example, youll need a file to store the last four file names. You need to open that file
and initialize the corresponding menu entries when you run the application -- you need to
rewrite that file when you exit the application. You need logic to re-order file names
when a new file is opened or saved. You need logic to establish new menu items as new
files are used. Youll need additional error-trapping in the open procedure, in case a file
selected from the menu no longer exists. Like I said, a lot to consider here.
51. My Solution:
52. These new menu items immediately precede the existing Exit menu item:
53. Menu mnuFileRecent:
Caption = [Blank]
Index = 0, 1, 2, 3 (a control array)
Visible = False
54. Menu mnuFileBar:
Caption = -
Visible = False
55. Code Modifications (new code is bold and italicized):
56. General Declarations:
57. Option Explicit
Dim Dates(1000) As Date
Dim Weights(1000) As String
Dim NumWts As Integer
Dim NFiles As Integer, RFile(3) As String, MenuOpen As Integer, FNmenu As String

Rfile Update General Procedure:
58. Sub RFile_Update(NewFile As String)
Routine to place newest file name in proper order
in menu structure
Dim I As Integer, J As Integer, InList As Integer
'Convert name to all upper case letters
NewFile = UCase(NewFile)
'See if file is already in list
InList = 0
For I = 0 To NFiles - 1
If RFile(I) = NewFile Then InList = 1: Exit For
Next I
'If file not in list, increment number of items with
'a maximum of 4. Then, move others down, then place
'new name at top of list
If InList = 0 Then
NFiles = NFiles + 1
161

If NFiles > 4 Then
NFiles = 4
Else
If NFiles = 1 Then mnuFileBar.Visible = True
mnuFileRecent(NFiles - 1).Visible = True
End If
If NFiles <> 1 Then
For I = NFiles - 1 To 1 Step -1
RFile(I) = RFile(I - 1)
Next I
End If
RFile(0) = NewFile
Else
'If file already in list, put name at top and shift
'others accordingly
If I <> 0 Then
For J = I - 1 To 0 Step -1
RFile(J + 1) = RFile(J)
Next J
RFile(0) = NewFile
End If
End If
'Set menu captions according to new list
For I = 0 To NFiles - 1
mnuFileRecent(I).Caption = "&" + Format(I + 1, "# ") + RFile(I)
Next I
End Sub
59. Form Load Event:
60. Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim I As Integer
'Open .ini file and load in recent file names
Open "weight.ini" For Input As #1
NFiles = 0: MenuOpen = 0
For I = 0 To 3
Input #1, RFile(I)
If RFile(I) <> "" Then
NFiles = NFiles + 1
mnuFileBar.Visible = True
mnuFileRecent(I).Caption = "&" + Format(I + 1, "# ") + RFile(I)
mnuFileRecent(I).Visible = True
End If
Next I
Close 1
frmWeight.Show
Call Init
End Sub
162

61. mnuFileExit Click Event:
62. Private Sub mnuFileExit_Click()
'Make sure user really wants to exit
Dim Response As Integer, I As Integer
Response = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to exit the weight program?", vbYesNo +
vbCritical + vbDefaultButton2, "Exit Editor")
If Response = vbNo Then
Exit Sub
Else
'Write out .ini file when done
Open "weight.ini" For Output As #1
For I = 0 To 3
Write #1, RFile(I)
Next I
Close 1
End
End If
End Sub

mnuFileOpen Click Event:
63. Private Sub mnuFileOpen_Click()
Dim I As Integer
Dim Today As Date
Dim Response As Integer
Dim File_To_Open As String
Response = MsgBox("Are you sure you want to open a new file?", vbYesNo +
vbQuestion, "New File")
If Response = vbNo Then Exit Sub
If MenuOpen = 0 Then
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.wgt)|*.wgt"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "wgt"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Open File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNFileMustExist + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Open
cdlFiles.ShowOpen
File_To_Open = cdlFiles.filename
Else
File_To_Open = FNmenu
End If
MenuOpen = 0
On Error GoTo BadOpen
Open File_To_Open For Input As #1
lblFile.Caption = File_To_Open
Input #1, NumWts
For I = 1 To NumWts
Input #1, Dates(I), Weights(I)
163

Next I
Close 1
Call RFile_Update(File_To_Open)
Today = Format(Now, "mm/dd/yy")
If Today <> Dates(NumWts) Then
NumWts = NumWts + 1
Dates(NumWts) = Today
Weights(NumWts) = ""
End If
vsbControl.Max = NumWts
vsbControl.Value = NumWts
lblDate.Caption = Dates(NumWts)
txtWeight.Text = Weights(NumWts)
Exit Sub
No_Open:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub

BadOpen:
Select Case MsgBox(Error(Err.Number), vbCritical + vbRetryCancel, "File Open Error")
Case vbRetry
Resume
Case vbCancel
Resume No_Open
End Select
End Sub
64. mnuFileRecent Click Event:
65. Private Sub mnuFileRecent_Click(Index As Integer)
FNmenu = RFile(Index): MenuOpen = 1
Call mnuFileOpen_Click
End Sub
66. mnuFileSave Click Event:
67. Private Sub mnuFileSave_Click()
Dim I As Integer
cdlFiles.Filter = "Files (*.wgt)|*.wgt"
cdlFiles.DefaultExt = "wgt"
cdlFiles.DialogTitle = "Save File"
cdlFiles.Flags = cdlOFNOverwritePrompt + cdlOFNPathMustExist
On Error GoTo No_Save
cdlFiles.ShowSave
Open cdlFiles.filename For Output As #1
lblFile.Caption = cdlFiles.filename
Write #1, NumWts
For I = 1 To NumWts
Write #1, Dates(I), Weights(I)
164

Next I
Close 1
Call RFile_Update(cdlFiles.filename)
Exit Sub
No_Save:
Resume ExitLine
ExitLine:
Exit Sub
End Sub