VB.net build solution by ignore error - vb.net

Greeting everyone, i'm new member and this's my first time to post question on this.
I need your help to advise me how can i ignore the error and build the solution.
From my code has error 'BC30057' about 'Too many arguments' as you see. But i must use many kinds of argument due to this function depend on .dll file (many version with variant agrument) on each computer.
Please advise me, and if you have better solution plese let me know.
=======================================================================
Select Case Group
Case "A"
tmpStr = FITSCon.fn_InitDB(FITS_OPN, FITSRev)
Case "B"
tmpStr = FITSCon.fn_InitDB(FITS_Model, FITS_OPN, FITSRev, FITSName)
Case "C"
tmpStr = FITSCon.fn_InitDB(FITS_Model, FITS_OPN, FITSName)
End Select
=======================================================================

If that code is in a file for which Option Strict is set to Off then you can assign FITSCon to a variable of type Object and then call your method on that. With Option Strict Off, late-binding is permitted so you can use any signature you want in that case, as long as it's valid at run-time.
If you already have Option Strict Off for the project (which is the default for VS but I would recommend changing that) then all you need to do is this:
Dim FITSConObject As Object = FITSCon
Select Case Group
Case "A"
tmpStr = FITSConObject.fn_InitDB(FITS_OPN, FITSRev)
Case "B"
tmpStr = FITSConObject.fn_InitDB(FITS_Model, FITS_OPN, FITSRev, FITSName)
Case "C"
tmpStr = FITSConObject.fn_InitDB(FITS_Model, FITS_OPN, FITSName)
End Select
If you have Option Strict On for the project then leave a comment to that effect and I'll provide a detailed explanation of the best course of action, which would involve moving that code to a partial class in a separate code file, so you can turn Option Strict Off for the minimum of code.

Related

Extractng Variable Names from VBA Scripts

I want to Get List of Variables used in the Script i.e. VariableName13, strDLink, strZone.
A single file contains about 150+ events and each project contains about 700-900 files.
In VBA environment, I want to parse through each file, loop through each event and extract the Variable names declared or referenced by the Events.
I did find some material like Roslyn or TypeLib but unable to understand how to use them?
Can someone please share a proper approach to extract the variables?
Environment: VBA 6, SCADA HMI
Private Sub Rect13_Click()
Dim lResult As Long
Dim strDLink As String
Dim strZone As String
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
lResult = OpenFuncUpdate
If lResult = SomeValue Then
'DoThis
ElseIf lResult = SomeOtherValue Then
strDLink = "FullPathLink"
FuncDisassemblePath strDLink, , , , , , , , , , , , strZone
If Len(strZone) > 0 And (InStr(VariableName13.CurrentValue, "%") = 0) Then
SubLoadIA strZone & "%" & VariableName13.CurrentValue, Me
Else
SubLoadIA VariableName13.CurrentValue, Me
End If
End If
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
SubHandleError
End Sub
Depending on how you define what a "variable" is, you can try to parse VBA code with VBA code and regular expressions.
If all your declarations are consistently made, and consistently declare a single variable, and variables are consistently declared (Option Explicit is in every module), then capturing Dim|Private|Public|Friend|Global {identifier} should be good-enough... but that makes a lot of "ifs"
Real-life projects have Dim statements that can declare a list of local or private variables. Or there's a ReDim statement somewhere that's actually declaring an array on-the-spot. Or they don't always specify Option Explicit and variables aren't always even declared at all. Or there's a line continuation in the middle of the statement that breaks the regular expression. Or, or, or... so many things can go wrong, parsing VBA code is a rabbit hole.
For example suppose you need to pick up and list undeclared variables. A regular expression can't tell its usage from a procedure or function call, because they're syntactically identical. Regular expressions are missing the context of the grammar - and it's by tokenizing (aka "lexing") the source code and then parsing the tokens using parser rules that we can be 100% certain of what we're looking at.
Fortunately this is a solved problem, and there's free, open-source VBIDE tooling available for this, and get you 100% correct results every time without writing a single line of code or worrying about what legal declarations might be left unaccounted for.
Rubberduck (I manage this OSS project and own its website) will correctly parse any legal VB6/vBA code (and if it doesn't, we're extremely interested in a repro!), and then you can simply click a "copy" button to instantly have every single declaration in the clipboard:
Ctrl+V /paste onto a worksheet (or a Word document, or in Notepad!) and then you can easily turn it into a filter-enabled table; in your case you'd want to filter the [Declaration Type] for "Variable":
Above, the exported declarations for a VBA project that has a Sheet1 module with a test procedure that uses (but doesn't declare) a variable named undeclared:
Sub test()
undeclared = 42
Debug.Print undeclared
End Sub
Here's the same table for the code you've provided:
Note that SubHandleError and other Sub and Function calls would parse as and resolve to a procedure/function in your project. Here they're being picked up as undeclared variables because I didn't parse anything other than the code you supplied, so these identifiers are undefined.

Option Strict On disallows implicit conversions from 'String ' to 'Char' VB.NET

I'm using Option Strict On (and sometimes wishing I wasn't!) but have a piece of code that works as I want it to without it but not with it.
It should be quite simple I think but I couldn't find an answer here.
My code that works with Option Strict Off is this:
If returnedString.Contains(".exe ") And returnvalues.Count = 0 Then
Dim x As Integer = 0
For Each entry In returnedString.Split(".exe ")
If (entry.Length > 0) And x = 0 Then
returnvalues.Add(entry & ".exe")
x = x + 1
End If
Next
End If
The returnedString is, for example:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Whatever\Whatever.exe
and
C:\Program Files (x86)\Whatever\Whatever
is returned in entry if Option Strict is off, which is what I want.
However, if I use Visual Studio's suggestion of adding a cast, the following does not work:
For Each entry As String In returnedString.Split(CType(".exe ", Char()))
The first entry returned is C:\Program and this is presumably because it finds the Char ' '; I don't want it to check per character, I want it to check the whole string like it does when Option Strict is off but I can't work it out.
I tried .ToCharArray but that really does the same thing.
Please continue to use Option Strict On. It is annoying but it will save your day a lot.
For your problem:
It is caused by the fact that when you enable Option Strict On, the compiler is no longer allowed to take the first char from your string and use it as separator. Because there is no overload for string.Split that takes just a string, then it complains about an attempt to an do invalid conversion.
If you want to use a string as separator then it is required to pass an array of strings as the first parameter, and a second parameter of type StringSplitOptions is required.
Fixing it is really simple. Just change the line to:
For Each entry In returnedString.Split({".exe"}, StringSplitOptions.None)

Input box getting a compile error in VBA

I am learning how to create input boxes and I keep getting the same error. I have tried two different computers and have received the same error. The error I get is a "Compile Error: Wrong number of arguments or invalid property assignment"
Here is my code:
Option Explicit
Sub InputBox()
Dim ss As Worksheet
Dim Link As String
Set ss = Worksheets("ss")
Link = InputBox("give me some input")
ss.Range("A1").Value = Link
With ss
If Link <> "" Then
MsgBox Link
End If
End With
End Sub
When I run the code, it highlights the word "inputbox"
And help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
G
Three things
1) Call your sub something other than the reserved word InputBox as this may confuse things. *Edit... and this alone will resolve your error. See quote from #Mat's Mug.
2) A̶p̶p̶l̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.̶I̶n̶p̶u̶t̶B̶o̶x̶(̶"̶g̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶p̶u̶t̶"̶)̶ Use VBA.Interaction.InputBox("give me some input"). You can do this in addition to the first point. Documentation here.
3) Compare with vbNullString rather than "" . See here. Essentially, you will generally want to do this as vbNullString is, as described in that link, faster to assign and process and it takes less memory.
Sub GetInput()
Dim ss As Worksheet
Dim Link As String
Set ss = Worksheets("ss")
Link = VBA.Interaction.InputBox("give me some input")
ss.Range("A1").Value = Link
' With ss ''commented out as not sure how this was being used. It currently serves no purpose.
If Link <> vbNullString Then
MsgBox Link
End If
' End With
End Sub
EDIT: To quote #Mat's Mug:
[In the OP's code, what is actually being called is] VBA.Interaction.InputBox, but the call is shadowed by the procedure's identifier "InputBox", which is causing the error. Changing it to Application.InputBox "fixes" the problem, but doesn't invoke the same function at all. The solution is to either fully-qualify the call (i.e. VBA.Interaction.InputBox), or to rename the procedure (e.g. Sub DoSomething(), or both.
Sub InputBox()
That procedure is implicitly Public. Presumably being written in a standard module, that makes it globally scoped.
Link = InputBox("give me some input")
This means to invoke the VBA.Interaction.InputBox function, and would normally succeed. Except by naming your procedure InputBox, you've changed how VBA resolves this identifier: it no longer resolves to the global-scope VBA.Interaction.InputBox function; it resolves to your InputBox procedure, because VBAProject1.Module1.InputBox (assuming your VBA project and module name are respectively VBAProject1 and Module1) are always going to have priority over any other function defined in any other referenced type library - including the VBA standard library.
When VBA resolves member calls, it only looks at the identifier. If the parameters mismatch, it's not going to say "hmm ok then, not that one" and continue searching the global scope for more matches with a different signature - instead it blows up and says "I've found the procedure you're looking for, but I don't know what to do with these parameters".
If you change your signature to accept a String parameter, you get a recursive call:
Sub InputBox(ByVal msg As String)
That would compile and run... and soon blow up the call stack, because there's a hard limit on how deep the runtime call stack can go.
So one solution could be to properly qualify the InputBox call, so that the compiler knows exactly where to look for that member:
Link = VBA.Interaction.InputBox("give me some input")
Another solution could be to properly name your procedure so that its name starts with a verb, roughly describes what's going on, and doesn't collide with anything else in global scope:
Sub TestInputBox()
Another solution/work-around could be to use a similar function that happens to be available in the Excel object model, as QHarr suggested:
Link = Application.InputBox("give me some input")
This isn't the function you were calling before though, and that will only work in a VBA host that has an InputBox member on its Application class, whereas the VBA.Interaction.InputBox global function is defined in the VBA standard library and works in any VBA host.
A note about this:
If Link <> "" Then
This condition will be False, regardless of whether the user clicked OK or cancelled the dialog by "X-ing out". The InputBox function returns a null string pointer when it's cancelled, and an actual empty string when it's okayed with, well, an empty string input.
So if an empty string needs to be considered a valid input and you need to be able to tell it apart from a cancelled inputbox, you need to compare the string pointers:
If StrPtr(Link) <> 0 Then
This condition will only be False when the user explicitly cancelled, and will still evaluate to True if the user provided a legit empty string.

Mid() usage and for loops - Is this good practice?

Ok so I was in college and I was talking to my teacher and he said my code isn't good practice. I'm a bit confused as to why so here's the situation. We basically created a for loop however he declared his for loop counter outside of the loop because it's considered good practice (to him) even though we never used the variable later on in the code so to me it looks like a waste of memory. We did more to the code then just use a message box but the idea was to get each character from a string and do something with it. He also used the Mid() function to retrieve the character in the string while I called the variable with the index. Here's an example of how he would write his code:
Dim i As Integer = 0
Dim justastring As String = "test"
For i = 1 To justastring.Length Then
MsgBox( Mid( justastring, i, 1 ) )
End For
And here's an example of how I would write my code:
Dim justastring As String = "test"
For i = 0 To justastring.Length - 1 Then
MsgBox( justastring(i) )
End For
Would anyone be able to provide the advantages and disadvantages of each method and why and whether or not I should continue how I am?
Another approach would be, to just use a For Each on the string.
Like this no index variable is needed.
Dim justastring As String = "test"
For Each c As Char In justastring
MsgBox(c)
Next
I would suggest doing it your way, because you could have variables hanging around consuming(albeit a small amount) of memory, but more importantly, It is better practice to define objects with as little scope as possible. In your teacher's code, the variable i is still accessible when the loop is finished. There are occasions when this is desirable, but normally, if you're only using a variable in a limited amount of code, then you should only declare it within the smallest block that it is needed.
As for your question about the Mid function, individual characters as you know can be access simply by treating the string as an array of characters. After some basic benchmarking, using the Mid function takes a lot longer to process than just accessing the character by the index value. In relatively simple bits of code, this doesn't make much difference, but if you're doing it millions of times in a loop, it makes a huge difference.
There are other factors to consider. Such as code readability and modification of the code, but there are plenty of websites dealing with that sort of thing.
Finally I would suggest changing some compiler options in your visual studio
Option Strict to On
Option Infer to Off
Option Explicit to On
It means writing more code, but the code is safer and you'll make less mistakes. Have a look here for an explanation
In your code, it would mean that you have to write
Dim justastring As String = "test"
For i As Integer = 0 To justastring.Length - 1 Then
MsgBox( justastring(i) )
End For
This way, you know that i is definitely an integer. Consider the following ..
Dim i
Have you any idea what type it is? Me neither.
The compiler doesn't know what so it defines it as an object type which could hold anything. a string, an integer, a list..
Consider this code.
Dim i
Dim x
x = "ab"
For i = x To endcount - 1
t = Mid(s, 999)
Next
The compiler will compile it, but when it is executed you'll get an SystemArgumenException. In this case it's easy to see what is wrong, but often it isn't. And numbers in strings can be a whole new can of worms.
Hope this helps.

VB6 Editor changing case of variable names

I'm not much of a Visual Basic person, but I am tasked with maintaining an old VB6 app. Whenever I check out a file, the editor will replace a bunch of the uppercase variable names with lowercase automatically. How can I make this stop!? I don't want to have to change them all back, and it's a pain to have these changes show up in SourceSafe "Differences" when I'm trying to locate the REAL differences.
It is changing it automatically in the definition, too:
Dim C as Control becomes Dim c as Control. Dim X& becomes Dim x&. But it doesn't do it all the time; for example, three lines down from Dim x&, there's a Dim Y&, uppercase, which it did not change. Why's it do this to me?
Since I always find this thread first looking for a solution to messed-up casing, here is one Simon D proposed in a related question:
If you just need to fix one variable's casing (e.g. you accidentally made a cOrrectCAse variable and now they are all over the place), you can correct this for good by adding
#If False Then
Dim CorrectCase
#End If
to the beginning of your module. If you save the project and remove the statement later, the casing remains correct.
Using Excel VBA I often accidentally change all Range.Row to Range.row by carelessly dimming a row variable inside some function - with the help of Simon D's solution I can fix this now.
Continuing from DJ's answer...
And it won't only change the case of variables in the same scope either.
It will change the case of all variables with the same name in your entire project. So even if they're declared in uppercase in one place, another module might have different variables using the same variable names in lowercase, causing all variables in your project to change to lowercase, depending on which of the declarations was loaded (?) or edited last.
So the reason your C and X variables are changing case, while the Y isn't, is probably because C and X are declared somewhere else in your project too, but in lowercase, while Y isn't.
There's another mention of it here, where they mostly seem concerned with such variable names conflicting when case is being used to differentiate local from global variables. They end up going for prefixes instead.
The only alternative I can think of is to use some other editor with VB6-highlighting capabilities to do your editing...
Enums are even worse. Getting the case wrong anywhere the enum is used changes the case of the definition.
To get past the painful file diff experience, set the VSS option in the diff dialog to do case-insensitive comparisons. That way you'll only see the "real" changes.
It must be defined/declared in lower-case. Locate the declaration and fix it there. The IDE will always change the case to match the declaration.
Close all the VB projects, open the form file with a text editor, change the case of all the names then re-open the Project with VB IDE.
Prevent VB6 auto correct For enum values
As my general rule I declare constants in UPPERCASE. Since enums are essentially constants I like to declare values for enums in UPPERCASE as well. I noticed the VB6 IDE also auto corrects these.
I found the IDE does not correct these values when using numbers and underscores '_' in the value names.
Example:
Public Enum myEnum
VALUE 'Will be corrected to: Value
VALUE1 'Will not be corrected
VALUE_ 'Will not be corrected
End Enum
I do not know if this works in general and if this extends to naming/auto correction of variable names.
I have had a similar enumeration problem where for no apparent reason UPPERCASE was changed to MixedCase.
Enum eRowDepths
BD = 1
CF = 1
Separator = 1
Header = 3
subTotal = 2
End Enum
When I changed to the following (tailing the last character of the non-conforming variables), I had no problem
Enum eRowDepths
BD = 1
CF = 1
SEPARATO = 1
HEADE = 3
SUBTOTA = 2
End Enum
It turns out that this is a case of the tail wagging the dog. I have the following code, not the most elegant I admit but working nonetheless (please excuse formatting issues):-
'insert 3 rows
iSubTotalPlaceHolder = i
rows(ActiveSheet.Range(rangeDMirrorSubTotals).Cells.Count + _
Header _
& ":" _
& ActiveSheet.Range(rangeDMirrorSubTotals).Cells.Count + _
Header + _
subTotal + _
Separator).Insert
So it seems that the compiler won't accept explicit UpperCase constants as part of this statement.
This was acceptable
Dim fred as Integer
fred = SEPARATO + HEADE + SUBTOTA
So my work-around is to use a variable instead of the constants as part of the complex insert statement if I want to stick to the rule of keeping enumerated constants uppercase.
I hope this is of use
DJ is spot on... VB always changes the case of variables to match the original declaration. It's a 'feature'.
Continuing from Mercator's excellent answer...
I'd recommend:
Check out all files (I assume you're using VSS for a VB6 app)
Do a rebuild of the entire project group
Recheck back into VSS
Now base you're the real differences rather than the 'auto' changes that VB6 has tried to apply.