How do I apply method of the class to the property of the class? - vba

Question

I have a class ClsAnimal containing the string property species, and also method plural which just returns a string with added "s" at the end of a string. I wonder if it's possible to apply .Plural to Animal.Species directly, as shown in the example below:
Sub Test()
Dim Animal As New ClsAnimal
Animal.Species = "cat"
debug.print Animal.Species
'expected result "cat"
debug.print Animal.Species.Plural
'expected result "cats"
End Sub
ClsAnimal Code:
Option Explicit
Private PSpecies As String
Property Let Species(val As String)
PSpecies = val
End Property
Property Get Species() As String
Species = PSpecies
End Property
'returns the name of an animal + "s"
Private Function Plural(val) As String
Plural = val & "s"
End Function

Answer 1

You can kind of hack your way to the behavior you are describing. They way I could implement this is to create a new class that "extends" strings. I've called mine StringExt and it looks like this:
Option Explicit
Private pValue As String
'#DefaultMember
Public Property Get Value() As String
Value = pValue
End Property
Public Property Let Value(val As String)
pValue = val
End Property
Public Function Pluralize() As String
Dim suffix As String
'Examine last letter of the string value...
Select Case LCase(Right(pValue, 1))
Case "" 'empty string
suffix = ""
Case "s" 'words that end in s are pluralized by "es"
suffix = "es"
'Test for any other special cases you want...
Case Else ' default case
suffix = "s"
End Select
Pluralize = pValue & suffix
End Function
This is a wrapper class that wraps around an inner string value. It has a single method which will try to return the plural of the inner string value. One thing to note here is the use of a DefaultMember. I used a really handy vba editor COM addin called RubberDuck to do all the behind-the-scenes work for me with the Default Member. You can do it manually though. You would need to export the class module and modify it in a text editor, adding the Attribute Value.VB_UserMemId = 0 tag inside the property getter:
...
Public Property Get Value() As String
Attribute Value.VB_UserMemId = 0
Value = pValue
End Property
Public Property Let Value(val As String)
pValue = val
End Property
...
Then, import the module back into your vba project. This attribute is not visible in the vba editor. More on default members here but it basically means this property will be returned if no property is specified.
Next, we change up your animal class a bit, using our new StringExt type for the Species property:
Option Explicit
Private pSpecies As StringExt
Public Property Set Species(val As StringExt)
pSpecies = val
End Property
Public Property Get Species() As StringExt
Set Species = pSpecies
End Property
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
Set pSpecies = New StringExt
End Sub
Note here that you'll now need to make sure the pSpecies field gets instantiated since it is an object type now. I do this in the class Initializer to enure it always happens.
Now, your client code should work as expected.
Sub ClientCode()
Dim myAnimal As Animal
Set myAnimal = New Animal
myAnimal.Species = ""
Debug.Print myAnimal.Species.Pluralize
End Sub
Disclamer:
Substituting a basic string type for an object type might cause unexpected behavior in certain fringe situations. You are probably better off just using some global string helper method that takes a string parameter and returns the plural version. But, my implementation will get the behavior you asked for in this question. :-)