Writing VBA statements

A statement in VBA is a complete instruction. It can contain keywords, operators, variables, constants, and expressions. Each statement belongs to one of the following three categories:

• Declaration statements, which name a variable, constant, or procedure and can also specify a data type.
• Assignment statements, which assign a value or expression to a variable or constant.
• Executable statements, which initiate actions. These statements can execute a method or function, and they can loop or branch through blocks of code. Executable statements often contain mathematical or conditional operators.

Continue a statement over multiple lines

A statement usually fits on one line, but you can continue a statement onto the next line by using a line-continuation character ( _). In the following example, the MsgBox executable statement is continued over three lines:

Sub DemoBox() 'This procedure declares a string variable,
    ' assigns it the value Claudia, and then displays
    ' a concatenated message.
    Dim myVar As String
    myVar = "John"
    MsgBox Prompt:="Hello " & myVar, _
        Title:="Greeting Box", _
        Buttons:=vbExclamation
End Sub

Add comments

Comments can explain a procedure or a particular instruction to anyone reading your code. Visual Basic ignores comments when it runs your procedures. Comment lines begin with an apostrophe (') or with Rem followed by a space, and can be added anywhere in a procedure. To add a comment to the same line as a statement, insert an apostrophe after the statement, followed by the comment. By default, comments are displayed as green text.

Check syntax errors

If you press ENTER after typing a line of code and the line is displayed in red (an error message may display as well), you must find out what's wrong with your statement, and then correct it.