Passing address of an instance of an object

[MXK]

Man... where's a pointer when you need one

Here's my situation, I have an instance of some Class A and that class creates an instance of a Form. After the control is passed to the Form object it has to contact the parent Class A and run a function or two. So my question is, how do I pass the address of the object to the form so that when the form executes a function from that object it's from the same instance and not a new one? I've tried passing the class ByRef to a function in the form and then that function had its own variable of the same type defined, but without an instance. Then I'd set that variable to the one that was passed ByRef and try to execute it, but then I got a message saying that the object doesn’t have an instance. Tried it with a delegate as well but that is for functions only and I need something for a class.

Any ideas?

[Pirate]

I don't think VB.NET work this way !

[MXK]

???

Can you make some suggestions then? How do I execute a function of a specific instance of a class from another class?

[Pirate]

Originally posted by MXK
???

Can you make some suggestions then? How do I execute a function of a specific instance of a class from another class?

You would call it like any other function in a class . I'm sure you know how to do this . I didn't understand what you're trying to do but constructors can help maybe. they fire upon each instantiation of the class .

[MXK]

I don't want another instance of the class. The initial class has specific private variables in it and functions called from that class need those variables to work properly. That’s why I have to call a function from a specific instance which has those variables set.

[Edneeis]

You don't even need ByRef you are automatically passing a reference to the object. I'm not sure what you are doing and if you need more help you should post your code but here is a brief example:

'all this code is in Form6   
 
    Private _mo As MyObject
 
    Public Sub New(ByVal mo As MyObject)
        Me.new()
        _mo = mo
    End Sub 
 
    Private Sub Form6_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
 
        If Not _mo Is Nothing Then
            'this shows the private data from the same instance that was passed in to the constructor
            MsgBox(_mo.GetInternal)
        End If
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
 
        'this is from another form but it can be from anywhere
        'also i am using the constructor to pass the instance but it can be however you want
        Dim sameInst As New MyObject("This is going to be a private variable!")
        Dim f As New Form6(sameInst)
        f.Show()
 
 
    End Sub
 
 
'here is the class which is not in form6
 
Public Class MyObject
 
    Private _InternalVariable As String = String.Empty
 
    Public Function GetInternal() As String
        Return _InternalVariable
    End Function
 
    Public Sub New(ByVal internal As String)
        _InternalVariable = internal
    End Sub
 
End Class

[MXK]

Yea I actually figured it out now, I should've just used ByVal when passing the class. Thanks for your help.