Visual Basic 2005 for Programmers: Deitel Developer Series, Second Edition

9.11. Const and ReadOnly Members

Visual Basic allows you to create constants—members whose values cannot change during program execution. To create a constant instance variable of a class, declare that member as either Const or ReadOnly. An instance variable declared as Const must be initialized in its declaration; an instance variable declared as ReadOnly can be initialized either in its declaration or in the class constructor. Const values must be initialized at compile time; whereas ReadOnly values are not initialized until runtime. Neither a Const nor a ReadOnly value can be modified once initialized.

Error-Prevention Tip 9.4

If a variable’s ...