Private
Used at the module level to declare private variables and allocate storage space.
Syntax:
Private [ WithEvents ] varname [ ( [ subscripts ] ) ] [ As [ New ] type ] [ , [ WithEvents ] varname [ ( [ subscripts ] ) ] [ As [ New ] type ]] . . .
- WithEvents
- optional Keyword that specifies that varname is an object variable used to respond to events triggered by an ActiveX object. WithEvents is valid only in class modules. Any number of individual variables may be declared by using WithEvents, but arrays cannot be declared with WithEvents, nor can New be combined with WithEvents.
- varname
- Name of the variable; follows standard variable naming conventions.
- subscripts
- optional Dimensions of an array variable; up to 60 multiple dimensions may be declared. The subscripts argument uses the following syntax: [ lower To ] upper [ , [ lower To ] upper ] . . .. When not explicitly stated in lower, the lower bound of an array is controlled by the Option Base statement. The lower bound is zero if no Option Base statement is present.
- New
- optional Keyword that enables implicit creation of an object. When New is used to declare the object variable, a new instance of the object is created on first reference to it, so the Set statement is not required to assign the object reference. The New keyword can’t be used to declare variables of any intrinsic data type or to declare instances of dependent objects, and it can’t be used with WithEvents.
- type
- optional Data type of the variable; may be Byte, Boolean, Integer, Long, Currency, Single, Double, Decimal, Date, String (for variable-length strings), String length (for fixed-length strings), Object, Variant, a user-defined type, or an object type. Use a separate As type clause for each variable being defined.
Private variables are available only to the module in which they are declared.
Use the Private statement to declare the data type of a variable. For example, the following statement declares a variable as an Integer:
Private NumberOfEmployees As Integer
A Private statement can also declare the object type of a variable. The following statement declares a variable for a new instance of a worksheet:
Private X As New Worksheet
If the New keyword isn’t used when declaring an object variable, the variable that refers to the object must be assigned an existing object by using the Set statement before it can be used. Until it is assigned an object, the declared object variable has the special value Nothing, which indicates that it doesn’t refer to any particular instance of an object.
When no data type or object type is specified, and there is no Deftype statement in the module, the variable is Variant by default.
The Private statement with empty parentheses also declares a dynamic array. After declaring a dynamic array, use the ReDim statement within a procedure to define the number of dimensions and elements in the array. Redeclaring a dimension for an array variable whose size was explicitly specified in a Private, Public, or Dim statement raises an error.
When variables are initialized, a numeric variable is initialized to 0, a variable-length string is initialized to a zero-length string (“”), and a fixed-length string is filled with zeros. Variant variables are initialized to Empty. Each element of a user-defined type variable is initialized as if it were a separate variable.
Note
The Private statement cannot be used inside a procedure; use the Dim statement to declare local variables.
The Private keyword is also used as a procedure modifier on Sub, Function, and Property declarations to make those procedures accessible only within the module in which they are declared.
Example
This example shows the Private statement being used at the module level to declare variables as private; that is, they are available only to the module in which they are declared.
Private Number As Integer ' Private Integer variable.
Private NameArray(1 To 5) As String ' Private array variable.
' Multiple declarations, two Variants and one Integer, all Private.
Private MyVar, YourVar, ThisVar As Integer