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Erase statement

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Reinitializes the elements of fixed-size arrays and releases dynamic-array storage space.

Syntax

Erase arraylist

The required arraylist argument is one or more comma-delimited array variables to be erased.

Remarks

Erase behaves differently depending on whether an array is fixed-size (ordinary) or dynamic. Erase recovers no memory for fixed-size arrays. Erase sets the elements of a fixed array as follows:

Type of array Effect of Erase on fixed-array elements
Fixed numeric array Sets each element to zero.
Fixed string array (variable length) Sets each element to a zero-length string ("").
Fixed string array (fixed length) Sets each element to zero.
Fixed Variant array Sets each element to Empty.
Array of user-defined types Sets each element as if it were a separate variable.
Array of objects Sets each element to the special value Nothing.

Erase frees the memory used by dynamic arrays. Before your program can refer to the dynamic array again, it must redeclare the array variable's dimensions by using a ReDim statement.

Example

This example uses the Erase statement to reinitialize the elements of fixed-size arrays and deallocate dynamic-array storage space.

' Declare array variables. 
Dim NumArray(10) As Integer ' Integer array. 
Dim StrVarArray(10) As String ' Variable-string array. 
Dim StrFixArray(10) As String * 10 ' Fixed-string array. 
Dim VarArray(10) As Variant ' Variant array. 
Dim DynamicArray() As Integer ' Dynamic array. 
ReDim DynamicArray(10) ' Allocate storage space. 
Erase NumArray ' Each element set to 0. 
Erase StrVarArray ' Each element set to zero-length 
 ' string (""). 
Erase StrFixArray ' Each element set to 0. 
Erase VarArray ' Each element set to Empty. 
Erase DynamicArray ' Free memory used by array.

See also

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