WD97: Troubleshooting Variables and Data Types

This article offers suggestions for using variables and data types in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications in the applications listed at the beginning of this article.

When declaring variables, the default data type is Variant. Programmers should ideally specify specific data types and not use the Variant data types. Variant data types consume more memory, do not offer the same performance as specific data types, and can promote errors in programming logic.

Make sure variables are properly declared. Consider the following example: This syntax may appear to be declaring two Object variables, but in this case oVar1 is being implicitly declared as a Variant (the default data type) and oVar2 is being explicitly declared as an Object. The following code will produce two Object variables: -or- For more information about dimensioning variables, from the Visual Basic Editor, click the Office Assistant, type Declaring Variables, click Search, and then click to view "Declaring Variables."

NOTE: If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard toolbar. If the Assistant is not able to answer your query, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

For more information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: