Do really long calculations cause problems? what am i doing wrong?[resolved]

[MET777]

heres my code for saving some info to an array

For h = 0 To Shp.ubound
    For i = 0 To Shp.ubound
            gravforcex(h, i) = (Shp(h).Left - Shp(i).Left) * (((Sqr(Sqr((Shp(h).Left - Shp(i).Left) ^ 2 + (Shp(h).Top - Shp(i).Top) ^ 2))) ^ -1 * 500) / (Sqr((Shp(h).Left - Shp(i).Left) ^ 2 + (Shp(h).Top - Shp(i).Top) ^ 2)))
            gravforcey(h, i) = (Shp(h).Top - Shp(i).Top) * (((Sqr(Sqr((Shp(h).Left - Shp(i).Left) ^ 2 + (Shp(h).Top - Shp(i).Top) ^ 2))) ^ -1 * 500) / (Sqr((Shp(h).Left - Shp(i).Left) ^ 2 + (Shp(h).Top - Shp(i).Top) ^ 2)))
    Next i
Next h

on the gravforcex(h,i) = blah line... it gives me an invalid procedure call or argument error.
shp is a shape control array, and its set up correctly... ive tested the top and left properties in other ways and they are working.
if u have any input itd be greatly appreciated

[RhinoBull]

Without even looking at formulas I'd recommend to "split" into variables so you can debug each value before the final cals.

[MET777]

right... well the whole reasoning behind makeing that extremely large calculation was to speed up my program b/c i figured making 6 or 8 array variables in a loop would be much more time consuming than just rolling them all together... am i wrong in this assumption?

[RhinoBull]

Well, since you're working with numbers you really have little to worry about peformance - VB processes numbers extremly fast.

[MET777]

ok thanx... what is it that makes vb so slow if it processes numbers so fast? isnt everything in a program essentially numbers?

[RhinoBull]

I don't quite understand your sarcasm.
Under sircumstances VB6 can perform better than VC++, C#, VB.Net not to mention Java...

[MET777]

really? thats not been my impression... ive always been told that c++ and c are way faster powerful languages

[RhinoBull]

It depends - you can't beat C++ in processing strings (perhaps OAK on UNIX will outperform it) but not numbers ...

[jcis]

ok thanx... what is it that makes vb so slow if it processes numbers so fast? isnt everything in a program essentially numbers?

Strings

Working with Numbers is very fast in VB, actually VC++ time is just 15% faster than VB time.

[moeur]

you are probably trying to take the square root of a negative number.

[RhinoBull]

... what is it that makes vb so slow ... ?

Strings ...

If it was that simple we could all leave with that ... I guess.
Actually relatively small strings are quite fast - it's the large ones that slow down things. Also variants, objects, bindings and so on and so forth. But over all I think VB6 is pretty darn good "performer" !!!