VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language

Chapter 7. The Language Reference

VBA is a high-level language and, like all high-level languages, it is, by its very nature, a large yet rich language. While this means that it takes time for new users to understand the intricacies of the many and varied functions and statements available to them, at the same time the language's syntax is straightforward, logical, and therefore easy to understand.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to overcome is deciding which one of a number of functions and statements available to perform roughly the same task should be used. This situation has come about as the language has evolved over a number of years, and older statements have been left in the language to provide backward compatibility. If you always bear in mind that the language was originally made up of statements, that later versions introduced functions, and that only recently have object models been provided, then you can pinpoint the latest functionality within the language.

To help speed the process of finding the right function or statement to perform a particular task, you can use Appendix A, to determine what language elements are available for the purpose you require. You can also make use of the VB or VBA Object Browser to search or browse the VBA library.

As I've stated several times already, this book concentrates on the VBA language, and therefore doesn't include the following components, which don't form a part of the VBA language:

• The methods, properties, and events associated ...