StringArray: exactly like Array, but returns a string array

[Merri]

Public Function StringArray(ParamArray Strings() As Variant) As String()
    Static strTemp() As String
    Dim lngUB As Long, lngA As Long
    lngUB = UBound(Strings)
    If lngUB > -1 Then
        ReDim Preserve strTemp(lngUB)
        For lngA = 0 To lngUB
            strTemp(lngA) = CStr(Strings(lngA))
        Next lngA
        StringArray = strTemp
    Else
        StringArray = Split(vbNullString)
    End If
End Function

Sample usage:

Private Sub Form_Load()
    MsgBox Join(StringArray("Test", "Really."), " this thing. ")
End Sub

Notes:
The function always returns an existing array. UBound may be -1 if there are no items in the array.

This function doesn't have error detection, this means you could pass objects, controls etc. into the function, which would result into an error message (instead of the function silently handling the error and resulting into a null string).


(I actually found it interesting that I didn't find even an attempt to create this function anywhere on this forum.)

[Doomguy0505]

Wouldn't it be better written like this?

Public Function StringArray(ParamArray Strings() As Variant) As String
        StringArray = Strings
End Function

[Merri]

For the simple reason it doesn't work: you can't place a Variant array into String array, so you're forced to create your own array and loop through each item and convert them to strings, then return that.

If placing Variant array into a String array would work, then there wouldn't be need for StringArray at all, because just using Array would do the same (it makes a Variant array).