Visual Basic 2005 in a Nutshell, Third Edition

Sub Statement | 461

The Language

Reference

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2006 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Usage at a Glance

• The members of a structure can be fields, properties, methods, events, or types.

Each member must be declared with an access modifier.

• You cannot assign a structure member an initial value as part of its declaration.

The initial values of structure members can be set in the structure’s constructor.

• If a structure member is an array, it cannot be explicitly dimensioned in its

definition.

• Although structures are similar to classes, they cannot explicitly inherit, nor can

they be inherited. All constructors for a structure must be parameterized, and

structures cannot define destructors.

Example

The simplest and most common use of structures is to encapsulate related variables, as

in this sample code:

Structure Person

Public Name As String

Public Address As String

Public City As String

Public State As String

Public Zip As String

Public Age As Short

End Structure

An instance of Person is declared as:

Dim personRecord As Person

As with classes, structure members use the “dot” syntax:

personRecord.Name = "Beethoven"

Version Differences

• The Structure...EndStructure construct is new to VB under .NET. It replaces the

Type...EndType construct in VB 6. The syntax and functionality differences

between the two are significant.

• VB 6 user-defined ...