VBScript in a Nutshell

Name

Private Statement

Syntax

Private varname[([subscripts])] [, varname[([subscripts])] . . .

varname

Use: Required

Variant Subtype: Any

The name of the variable, following Visual Basic naming conventions.

subscripts

Use: Optional

Variant Subtype: Integer or Long

Denotes varname as an array and optionally specifies the number and extent of array dimensions.

Description

Used in a script or in a class to declare a private or local variable and allocate the relevant storage space in memory.

Rules at a Glance

• A Private variable’s scope is limited to the script in which it’s created for script-level variables and to the class in which it is declared for class-level variables. Elsewhere, the Private keyword generates an error.

• varname follows standard VB naming conventions. It must begin with an alphabetic character, can’t contain embedded periods or spaces, can’t be the same as a VBScript reserved word, must be shorter than 255 characters, and must be unique within its scope.

• The subscripts argument has the following syntax:

                          upperbound [,upperbound]...

  For example:

  Private strNames(10)

  defines an array of 11 elements (an array whose lower bound is and whose upper bound is 10). Similarly:

  Private lngPrices(10, 10)

  defines a two-dimensional array of eleven elements in each dimension.

• Using the subscripts argument, you can declare up to 60 multiple dimensions for the array.

• If the subscripts argument isn’t used (i.e., the variable name is followed by empty parentheses), the array is declared dynamic. You ...