Static Statement

Use a Static statement within a procedure to declare a variable used only in that procedure and that Visual Basic does not reinitialize while the module containing the procedure is open. Visual Basic opens all standard and class modules (objects you can see in the Modules list in the Navigation pane) when you open the database containing those objects. Visual Basic keeps form or report class modules open only while the form or the report is open.

Syntax

Static {variablename [({<array dimension>},...)]
  [As [New] datatype]},...

where <array dimension> is

Notes

If you do not include an <array dimension> specification but you do include the parentheses, you must include a ReDim statement in each procedure that uses the array to dynamically allocate the array at run time. You can define an array with up to 60 dimensions. If you do not include a lowerbound value in an <array dimension> specification, the default lower bound is 0. You can reset the default lower bound to 1 by including an Option Base 1 statement in the module Declarations section. The lowerbound and upperbound values must be integers, and upperbound must be greater than or equal to lowerbound. The number of members of an array is limited only by the amount of memory on your computer.

Valid datatype entries are Byte, Boolean, Integer, Long, Currency, Single, Double, Date, String (for variable-length strings), String * length (for fixed-length strings), Object, Variant, or one of the object types described in this tutorial. You can also declare a user-defined variable structure using the Type statement and then use the user type name as a data type. You should always explicitly declare the data type of your variables. If you do not include the As datatype clause, Visual Basic assigns the Variant data type.

Use the New keyword to indicate that a declared object variable is a new instance of an object that doesn't have to be set before you use it. You can use the New keyword only with object variables to create a new instance of that class of object without requiring a Set statement. You can't use New to declare dependent objects. If you do not use the New keyword, you cannot reference the object or any of its properties or methods until you set the variable to an object using a Set statement.

Visual Basic initializes declared variables at compile time. Numeric variables are initialized to zero (0), variant variables are initialized to empty, variable-length string variables are initialized as zero-length strings, and fixed-length string variables are filled with ANSI zeros (Chr(0)).

Examples

To declare a static variable named intMyInteger as an integer, enter the following:

To declare a static array named strMyString that contains fixed-length strings that are 20 characters long and contains 50 entries from 51 through 100, enter the following: