Home Library Learn Downloads Support Community
Sign in | United States - English | |
45 out of 66 rated this helpful - Rate this topic

MsgBox Function

Updated: March 2009

Displays a message in a dialog box, waits for the user to click a button, and returns a value indicating which button the user clicked.

Copy 

                      MsgBox(prompt[, buttons][, title][, helpfile, context])
prompt

String expression displayed as the message in the dialog box. The maximum length of prompt is approximately 1024 characters, depending on the width of the characters used. If prompt consists of more than one line, you can separate the lines using a carriage return character (Chr(13)), a linefeed character (Chr(10)), or carriage return–linefeed character combination (Chr(13) & Chr(10)) between each line.

buttons

Numeric expression that is the sum of values specifying the number and type of buttons to display, the icon style to use, the identity of the default button, and the modality of the message box. See Settings section for values. If omitted, the default value for buttons is 0.

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.

helpfile

String expression that identifies the Help file to use to provide context-sensitive Help for the dialog box. If helpfile is provided, context must also be provided. Not available on 16-bit platforms.

context

Numeric expression that identifies the Help context number assigned by the Help author to the appropriate Help topic. If context is provided, helpfile must also be provided. Not available on 16-bit platforms.

The buttons argument settings are:

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.

vbCritical

16

Display Critical Message icon.

vbQuestion

32

Display Warning Query icon.

vbExclamation

48

Display Warning Message icon.

vbInformation

64

Display Information Message icon.

vbDefaultButton1

   0

First button is default.

vbDefaultButton2

 256

Second button is default.

vbDefaultButton3

 512

Third button is default.

vbDefaultButton4

 768

Fourth button is default.

vbApplicationModal

   0

Application modal. The user must respond to the message box before continuing work in the current application.

vbSystemModal

4096

System modal. On Microsoft Win16 systems, all applications are suspended until the user responds to the message box. On Microsoft Win32 systems, this constant provides an application modal message box that always remains on top of any other programs that you have running

The first group of values (0–5) describes the number and type of buttons displayed in the dialog box; the second group (16, 32, 48, 64) describes the icon style; the third group (0, 256, 512, 768) determines which button is the default; and the fourth group (0, 4096) determines the modality of the message box. When adding numbers to create a final value for the argument buttons, use only one number from each group.

The MsgBox function has the following return values:

Constant

Value

Button

vbOK

1

OK

vbCancel

2

Cancel

vbAbort

3

Abort

vbRetry

4

Retry

vbIgnore

5

Ignore

vbYes

6

Yes

vbNo

7

No

When both helpfile and context are provided, the user can press F1 to view the Help topic corresponding to the context.

If the dialog box displays a Cancel button, pressing the ESC key has the same effect as clicking Cancel. If the dialog box contains a Help button, context-sensitive Help is provided for the dialog box. However, no value is returned until one of the other buttons is clicked.

When the MsgBox function is used with Microsoft Internet Explorer, the title of any dialog presented always contains "VBScript:" to differentiate it from standard system dialogs.

The following example illustrates the use of the MsgBox function.

Copy 
result = MsgBox ("File Save Error", _
    vbAbortRetryIgnore+vbExclamation+vbDefaultButton2, "File Save Error")

Dim message

Select Case result
Case vbAbort
    message = "You chose Abort"
Case vbRetry
    message = "You chose Retry"
Case vbIgnore
    message = "You chose Ignore"
End Select

MsgBox message, vbInformation

Date

History

Reason

March 2009

Modified example.

Information enhancement.

March 2009

Added information about the vbSystemModal constant.

Content bug fix.

Did you find this helpful?
(1500 characters remaining)
Community Content Add
Annotations FAQ
Assignment of result is not required
Regarding the previous assertion that the assignment of the result of the MsgBox function is required when using optional parameters - this is not strictly true - and the reason is actually provided in the resultant error message: "Cannot use parentheses when calling a Sub"

In vbScript, it is not permitted to call a subroutine (or a function where you do not make use of the return value) with brackets unless you use the Call statement. The apparent exceptions to the rule are where no arguments are supplied, or when only one argument is supplied; both subname() and subname(argument) appear to be valid.

To call MsgBox with optional parameters, without assigning the result, either omit the brackets, or use the Call statement. The following examples are valid and will work:

MsgBox "This is a messagebox"
MsgBox("This is a message box")
MsgBox "This is a messagebox", vbInformation
dlgResult = MsgBox("This is a messagebox", vbInformation + vbOKCancel)
Call MsgBox("This is a messagebox", vbInformation)


History
Assignment term is sometimes required
The MsgBox function can be used without the assignment term. For example:

MsgBox("I'm OK.")

However, when using any of the optional arguments, you MUST include the assignment. For example:

MsgBox("I'm OK.",  vbInformation)

will not compile. You must include the assignment:

response = MsgBox("I'm OK.",  vbInformation)
History
Displaying variant's value inside the MsgBox

You cand display the value of a variant inside of a MsgBox by simply typing it's name as a parameter:

cat = "Are you OK?"
result = MsgBox ( cat , vbOKOnly + vInformation, "Check your pulse!")
 
instead of text with quatation marks.

You can also use the    &    in order to concatenate more text or to combine variants and text: 

cat = 78
result = MsgBox ( "Your pulse is " & cat & ". Please see a doctor!", vbOKOnly + vInformation, "Check your pulse!")

History