About ByRef

[Geespot]

Hi, im really confused and i cant work out why this does this.

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim a As Long
    a = 10
    c = f(a)
    MsgBox a
End Sub
 
Private Function f(b As Long) As Long
    b = b + 1
End Function

Can someone please explain why a = 11 after this code is done?
i thought that you had to use ByRef keyword if you wanted to change the original value??
ie

Private Function f(ByRef b as long) as long

How is it possible that 'a' variable changes when all im doing is passing the 'a' value to the function?

[mendhak]

ByRef is ByDefault.

[Geespot]

Ok thats totally disturbed me now, from 3 years of college to learning Visual Basic i always thought ByVal was default and ive always worked as if it was.
How i never ran into a problem before today i totally dont know

[Jason Badon]

I think this might help

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim a As Long
    a = 10
    c = f(a)
    MsgBox a
End Sub
 
Private Function f(b As Long) As Long
    ' At this point a = b and b = a so when you add 1 to b you are adding 1 to a
    b = b + 1
End Function

Looking at what you had this looks like what you were tiring to accomplish.

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim a As Long
    a = 10
    c = f(a)
    MsgBox a
    MsgBox f(a)
    MsgBox c
End Sub
 
Private Function f(b As Long) As Long
    f = b + 1
End Function

[Geespot]

Thanks but i solved it by

Private Function f( ByVal b as long) as long
b=b+1
End Function

that keeps the original variable 'a' as 10

its just that i always thought ByVal was default and im suprised that ive never had any problems as i always thought it was ByVal

[mendhak]

Thou art doomed.