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Writing Visual Basic statements

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A statement in Visual Basic is a complete instruction. It can contain keywords, operators, variables, constants, and expressions. Each statement belongs to one of the following three categories:

  • Declaration statements, which name a variable, constant, or procedure and can also specify a data type.

  • Assignment statements, which assign a value or expression to a variable or constant.

  • Executable statements, which initiate actions. These statements can execute a method or function, and they can loop or branch through blocks of code. Executable statements often contain mathematical or conditional operators.

Continue a statement over multiple lines

A statement usually fits on one line, but you can continue a statement onto the next line by using a line-continuation character. In the following example, the MsgBox executable statement is continued over three lines:

Sub DemoBox() 'This procedure declares a string variable, 
 ' assigns it the value Claudia, and then displays 
 ' a concatenated message. 
 Dim myVar As String 
 myVar = "John" 
 MsgBox Prompt:="Hello " & myVar, _ 
 Title:="Greeting Box", _ 
 Buttons:=vbExclamation 
End Sub

Add comments

Comments can explain a procedure or a particular instruction to anyone reading your code. Visual Basic ignores comments when it runs your procedures. Comment lines begin with an apostrophe (') or with Rem followed by a space, and can be added anywhere in a procedure. To add a comment to the same line as a statement, insert an apostrophe after the statement, followed by the comment. By default, comments are displayed as green text.

Check syntax errors

If you press ENTER after typing a line of code and the line is displayed in red (an error message may display as well), you must find out what's wrong with your statement, and then correct it.

See also

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