Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Who Should Read This Book
  • What This Book Will Do for You
  • Can This Book Really Teach Visual Basic in 24 Hours?
  • What You Need
  • Files on the Visual Basic Distribution CD-ROM
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Enough! Time Is Ticking!
  • Part I: Introducing Visual Basic
  • Hour 1. Visual Basic at Work
  • Hour 2.Analyzing Visual Basic Programs
  • Hour 3.Controls and Properties
  • Hour 4.Examining Labels, Buttons, and Text Boxes
  • Part II: Coding the Details
  • Hour 5.Putting Code into Visual Basic
  • Hour 6.Message and Input Boxes
  • Hour 7.Making Decisions
  • Hour 8.Visual Basic Looping
  • Part III:Putting Code to Work
  • Hour 9.Combining Code and Controls
  • Hour 10.List Boxes and Data Lists
  • Hour 11.Additional Controls
  • Hour 12.Dialog Box Basics
  • Part IV:Programming with Data
  • Hour 13.Modular Programming
    • Structured Programming
    • Calling Procedures and Returning from Them
    • Coding Subroutines
    • Coding Functions
    • Coding Arguments
    • Receiving by Reference and by Value
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 14.Built-In Functions Save Time
  • Hour 15.Visual Basic Database Basics
  • Hour 16.Printing with Visual Basic
  • Part V:Sprucing Up Programs
  • Hour 17.Menus and Visual Basic
  • Hour 18.The Graphic Image Controls
  • Hour 19.Toolbars and More Graphics
  • Hour 20.Writing Correct Applications
  • Part VI:Advancing Visual Basic Applications
  • Hour 21.Visual Basic and ActiveX
  • Hour 22.Object Basics
  • Hour 23.Distributing Your Applications
  • Hour 24.Online Visual Basic
  • Part VII:Appendixes
  • Appendix A.Operator Precedence
  • Appendix B.Answers
  • Appendix C.Using the CD-ROM

Q&A

1. I've always coded long procedures and my programs work, so why should I write structured code now?

   If your way works well, the structured way would be working even better. When you test your applications, you must wade through lots of code, searching for problem areas. When you test structured applications, however, you can usually narrow the bug down to one or two small procedures. Making a change to correct the bug rarely affects other procedures, but when your code is in a few long procedures that do lots of work, a change could adversely affect surrounding code.

2. If I'm careful, what does it matter how I receive arguments?

   The method you use to pass and receive arguments, either by reference or by value, doesn't just protect data. Sometimes you want a called procedure to change the calling procedure's argument values. A function procedure can only return a single value, but if you want a function procedure to modify several values, pass those values by reference and then make the function procedure (or even the subroutine procedure) modify each of those values. When the calling procedure regains control, the passed arguments will hold values changed by the called procedure.

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