7.7 Standard Modules

Visual Basic Language Specification

A standard module is a type whose members are implicitly Shared and scoped to the declaration space of the standard module's containing namespace, rather than just to the standard module declaration itself. Standard modules may never be instantiated. It is an error to declare a variable of a standard module type.

A member of a standard module has two fully qualified names, one without the standard module name and one with the standard module name. More than one standard module in a namespace may define a member with a particular name; unqualified references to the name outside of either module are ambiguous. For example:

Namespace N1
    Module M1
        Sub S1()
        End Sub

        Sub S2()
        End Sub
    End Module

    Module M2
        Sub S2()
        End Sub
    End Module

    Module M3
        Sub Main()
            S1() ' Valid: Calls N1.M1.S1.
            N1.S1() ' Valid: Calls N1.M1.S1.
            S2() ' Not valid: ambiguous.
            N1.S2() ' Not valid: ambiguous.
            N1.M2.S2() ' Valid: Calls N1.M2.S2.
        End Sub
    End Module
End Namespace

A module may only be declared in a namespace and may not be nested in another type. Standard modules may not implement interfaces, they implicitly derive from Object, and they have only Shared constructors.

ModuleDeclaration ::=
   [ Attributes ] [ AccessModifier+ ] Module Identifier LineTerminator
   [ ModuleMemberDeclaration+ ]
   End Module LineTerminator

See Also