Programmer's Wiki
Register
Advertisement
16px-Pencil

Visual Basic, or VB, is a third-generation event-driven programming language from Microsoft, based on BASIC. VB is considered to be a very easy to learn programming language, although it's disrespected by many developers because it's said to encourage bad habits. Scripting languages such as VBA and VBScript are syntactically similar to Visual Basic, but perform differently. Many people get mixed up thinking that they are all the same thing but just different names. The final release was version 6 in 1998. Microsoft's extended support ended in March 2008 and the designated successor was Visual Basic .NET. Due to it's integration with Visual Studio it is a suitable language to use for RAD on the Windows Platform.

Hello World[]

Private Sub Form_Load()
   MsgBox "Hello, World!"
End Sub

Exception handling[]

You can throw an exception in VB with err.raise i, where i would be the error code. Available error codes are:

5: Invalid procedure call or argument
6: Overflow
7: Out of memory
9: Subscript out of range
10: This array is fixed or temporarily locked
11: Division by zero
13: Type mismatch
14: Out of string space
17: Can't perform requested operation
28: Out of stack space
35: Sub or Function not defined
48: Error in loading DLL
51: Internal error
52: Bad file name or number
53: File not found
54: Bad file mode
55: File already open
57: Device I/O error
58: File already exists
61: Disk full
62: Input past end of file
67: Too many files
68: Device unavailable
70: Permission denied
71: Disk not ready
74: Can't rename with different drive
75: Path/File access error
76: Path not found
91: Object variable not set
92: For loop not initialized
94: Invalid use of Null
322: Can't create necessary temporary file
424: Object required
429: ActiveX component can't create object
430: Class doesn't support Automation
432: File name or class name not found during Automation operation
438: Object doesn't support this property or method
440: Automation error
445: Object doesn't support this action
446: Object doesn't support named arguments
447: Object doesn't support current locale setting
448: Named argument not found
449: Argument not optional
450: Wrong number of arguments or invalid property assignment
451: Object not a collection
453: Specified DLL function not found
455: Code resource lock error
457: This key is already associated with an element of this collection
458: Variable uses an Automation type not supported in VBScript
462: The remote server machine does not exist or is unavailable
481: Invalid picture
500: Variable is undefined
501: Illegal assignment
502: Object not safe for scripting
503: Object not safe for initializing
504: Object not safe for creating
505: Invalid or unqualified reference
506: Class not defined
507: An exception occurred
1001: Out of memory
1002: Syntax error
1003: Expected ':'
1005: Expected '('
1006: Expected ')'
1007: Expected ']'
1010: Expected identifier
1011: Expected '='
1012: Expected 'If'
1013: Expected 'To'
1014: Expected 'End'
1015: Expected 'Function'
1016: Expected 'Sub'
1017: Expected 'Then'
1018: Expected 'Wend'
1019: Expected 'Loop'
1020: Expected 'Next'
1021: Expected 'Case'
1022: Expected 'Select'
1023: Expected expression
1024: Expected statement
1025: Expected end of statement
1026: Expected integer constant
1027: Expected 'While' or 'Until'
1028: Expected 'While', 'Until' or end of statement
1029: Expected 'With'
1030: Identifier too long
1031: Invalid number
1032: Invalid character
1033: Unterminated string constant
1034: Unterminated comment
1037: Invalid use of 'Me' keyword
1038: 'loop' without 'do'
1039: Invalid 'exit' statement
1040: Invalid 'for' loop control variable
1041: Name redefined
1042: Must be first statement on the line
1043: Cannot assign to non-ByVal argument
1044: Cannot use parentheses when calling a Sub
1045: Expected literal constant
1046: Expected 'In'
1047: Expected 'Class'
1048: Must be defined inside a Class
1049: Expected Let or Set or Get in property declaration
1050: Expected 'Property'
1051: Number of arguments must be consistent across properties specification
1052: Cannot have multiple default property/method in a Class
1053: Class initialize or terminate do not have arguments
1054: Property set or let must have at least one argument
1055: Unexpected 'Next'
1056: 'Default' can be specified only on 'Property' or 'Function' or 'Sub'
1057: 'Default' specification must also specify 'Public'
1058: 'Default' specification can only be on Property Get
4096: Microsoft VBScript compilation error
4097: Microsoft VBScript runtime error
5016: Regular Expression object expected
5017: Syntax error in regular expression
5018: Unexpected quantifier
5019: Expected ']' in regular expression
5020: Expected ')' in regular expression
5021: Invalid range in character set
30000:EN
32766:True
32767:False
32768:OK
32769:Cancel
32770:Help
32811:Element not found
32812:The specified date is not available in the current locale's calendar


Versions[]

Pre .NET[]

Version 6 and below of Visual Basic, like most other programming languages, uses its own framework and compiles to either P Code or assembly. However, it is also extensible, and controls and methods coming from other sources such as independent DLLs and ActiveX can be executed or created.

Visual Basic.NET[]

From version 7 onwards, Visual Basic used the .NET Framework as its framework. Other IDEs bundled with Visual Studio such as C#, C++, and Visual Web Developer, also use this framework, making it a common framework that users only need to have. This makes it easier for developers to deploy complex code without significantly increasing the program size because of the dependency to the .NET Framework. The versions of Visual Basic .NET are:

  • Visual Basic 7 (2003)
  • Visual Basic 8 (2005)
  • Visual Basic 9 (2008)
  • Visual Basic 10 (2010, supports .NET Framework 4)

External Links[]

Advertisement