Used at module level to declare private variables and allocate storage space.
Private varname[([subscripts])][As [New] type][, varname[([subscripts])][As[New] type]] . . .
The Private statement syntax has these parts:
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Part |
Description |
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varname |
Name of the variable; follows standard variable naming conventions. |
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subscripts |
Dimensions of an array variable; up to 60 multiple dimensions may be declared. The subscripts argument uses the following syntax: [lower To] upper[,[lower To] upper] . . . When not explicitly stated in lower, the lower bound of an array is controlled by the Option Base statement. The lower bound is zero if no Option Base statement is present. |
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New |
Keyword used to indicate that a declared object variable is a new instance of a Visual Basic object or an externally creatable OLE Automation object. The New keyword can’t be used to create variables of any intrinsic data type and can’t be used to create dependent OLE Automation objects. |
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type |
Data type of the variable; may be Byte, Boolean, Integer, Long, Currency, Single, Double, Date, String (for variable-length strings), String * length (for fixed-length strings), Object, Variant, a user-defined type, or an object type. Use a separate As type clause for each variable being defined. |
Private variables are available only to the module in which they are declared.
Use the Private statement to declare the data type of a variable. For example, the following statement declares a variable as an Integer:
Private NumberOfEmployees As Integer
Also use a Private statement to declare the object type of a variable. The following declares a variable for a new instance of a worksheet.
Private X As New Worksheet
If the New keyword is not used when declaring an object variable, no instance of the object actually exists. A variable that refers to an object must be assigned an existing object using the Set statement before it can be used. Until it is assigned an object, the declared object variable has the special value Nothing, which indicates that it does not refer to any particular instance of an object.
You can also use the Private statement with empty parentheses to declare a dynamic array. After declaring a dynamic array, use the ReDim statement within a procedure to define the number of dimensions and elements in the array. If you try to redeclare a dimension for an array variable whose size was explicitly specified in a Private, Public, or Dim statement, an error occurs.
If you do not specify a data type or object type, and there is no Deftype statement in the module, the variable is Variant by default.
When variables are initialized, a numeric variable is initialized to 0, a variable-length string is initialized to a zero-length string, and a fixed-length string is filled with zeros. Variant variables are initialized to Empty. Each element of a user-defined type variable is initialized as if it were a separate variable.
Tip When you use the Private statement in a procedure, it is a generally accepted programming practice to put the Private statement at the beginning of the procedure.
Array Function, Const Statement, Dim Statement, Function Statement, Option Base Statement, Option Private Statement, Property Get Statement, Property Let Statement, Property Set Statement, Public Statement, ReDim Statement, Set Statement, Static Statement, Sub Statement, Type Statement.
This example shows the Private statement being used at the module level to declare variables as private; that is, they are available only to the module in which they are declared.
Private Number As Integer ' Private Integer variable.NameArray(1 To 5) As String ' Private array variable. ' Multiple declarations, two Variants and one Integer, all Private.MyVar, YourVar, ThisVar As Integer