Initializing Arrays

VB includes a special built-in function called Array(). The Array() function lets you declare and initialize an array quickly. Suppose you want to store the number of days in each month (ignoring leap year) in an array named Days. You can declare it and initialize as:

Dim Days As Variant
Days = Arrays(31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31)

The Array function returns a Variant containing an array. If the Option Base 1 statement appears in the module's Declarations section, the first subscript of Array() is 1, or 0 otherwise.

Using arrays

In the previous section, you have seen that arrays can be used in calculations just as non-array variables. The following program segment shows two arrays for storing the name and the age of 5 persons.

Private Sub storeValue()
   Dim strName(5) As String
   Dim intAge(5) As Integer
   Dim intCtr As Integer

   For intCtr = 0 To 4
      strName(intCtr) = InputBox ("Enter the next name")
      intAge(intCtr) = InputBox ("Enter the age")
   Next intCtr

  'You can display all the data in the arrays
   intCtr = 0
   Do
      Msgbox "Name " & intCtr & " is " & strName(intCtr)
      Msgbox "Age " & intCtr & " is " & intAge(intCtr)
      intCtr = intCtr + 1
   Loop Until (intCtr > 4)

End Sub

In this chapter, you were introduced to Arrays. An array is a group of elements that share a common name, and that are differentiated from one another by their positions within the array.