Microsoft Visual Basic: how to initialize an array variable?

Question

I wrote a macro which performs certain operations on every instance of a specific set of Word Styles within a document.

To do so, I created an array of names this way:

Dim mylist(4) As String
mylist(1) = "Heading 1" 
mylist(2) = "Heading 2" 
mylist(3) = "Heading 3" 
mylist(4) = "Caption"

I was unable to find any help pages (inside Office Help or at microsoft.com) which mentioned a shorter way to do so. Is there any syntax that would let me simplify this into something like (pseudocode)

mylist(1:4) = ["Heading 1", "Heading 2", "Heading 3", "Caption"]

I'm looking for a general solution for one-line loading of an array, whether it's strings or numbers, when I don't want the entire collection of something like, say all styles in a document.

EDIT: I ran across Collection initialization syntax in Visual Basic 2008?, which suggests the answer is "not until VB10" . Any updates to that conclusion would be welcome.

We all secretly wish VB was more like FORTRAN.

John Alexiou
– John Alexiou

2013-09-16 12:59:01 +00:00
Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 12:59 — John Alexiou
– John Alexiou, Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 12:59

Derek · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-16 12:34:31Z

6

This is close but a little different than: Dim mylist(4) As String

Dim myarray As Variant
myarray = Array("Cat", "Dog", "Rabbit")

From: http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/18225-initializing-arrays-single-statement.html

answered Sep 16, 2013 at 12:34

Derek

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5 Comments

makciook Over a year ago

This will use more memory though. If you only want to use it for strings, stay with String type

Carl Witthoft Over a year ago

I don't have any huge lists, so memory not a problem. So long as it works for Word as well as Excel I should be OK. I'll report back.

Carl Witthoft Over a year ago

That link also suggested Dim mylist() As String mylist = Split("Heading 1,Heading 2,Caption", ",") . Both options work fine, other than that I have to remember that these arrays' index starts at zero, not one. Thanks!

Steve Rindsberg Over a year ago

Split("Ignore me,Heading 1, Heading 2 ...") and you can pretend that the array is 1-based. ;-)

MightyAni Aug 19 at 17:28

Up at the top of your VBA module, above all of your code and variable declarations, you can type Option Base 1 to force all of your arrays to start at index 1 instead of 0

EEM · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-08 21:33:19Z

1

If memory is not a problem (so data type can be variant) this generates a base 1 array

Dim mylist As Variant
    mylist = [{"Heading 1", "Heading 2", "Heading 3", "Caption"}]

answered Aug 8, 2019 at 21:33

EEM

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