A Quick Guide to the VBA Class Module

Item	Explanation
Class Module	Allows the user to create their own objects.
Method	A public function or sub in the class module.
Member variable	A variable declared in the class module.
Property	Special function/subs that behave like variables when used
Property types	Get, Set and Let.
Event - Initialize	Sub that automatically runs when the class module object is created.
Event - Terminate	Sub that automatically runs when the class module object is deleted.
Declaring and Creating - Static	Dim o As New Class1
Declaring and Creating - Dynamic	Dim o As Class1 Set o = New Class1
Calling a class module sub	o.WriteValues Total
Calling a class module function	Amount = o.Calculate()
Using a class module property	o.Amount = 1 Total = o.Amount

The Webinar

Members of the Webinar Archives can access the webinar for this article by clicking on the image below.

(Note: Archive members have access to the webinar archive.)

 

Introduction

VBA Class Modules allow the user to create their own objects. If you are not familiar with objects then I would highly recommend that you first check out my previous post VBA Objects – The Ultimate Guide.

In languages such as C# and Java, classes are used to create objects. Class Modules are the VBA equivalent of these classes. The major difference is that VBA Class Modules have a very limited type of Inheritance* compared to classes in the other languages. In VBA, Inheritance works in a similar way to Interfaces** in C#\Java.

In VBA we have built-in objects such as the Collection, Workbook, Worksheet and so on. The purpose of VBA Class Modules is to allow us to custom build our own objects.

Let’s start this post by looking at why we use objects in the first place.

*Inheritance is using an existing class to build a new class.
**Interfaces are a form of Inheritance that forces a class to implement specifics procedures or properties.
 

Download the Source Code

 

Why Do We Use Objects

Using objects allows us to build our applications like we are using building blocks.

The idea is that the code of each object is self-contained. It is completely independent of any other code in our application.

This is similar to how things are built using Lego® bricks. There are many different types of Lego® components used. For example, a block, steering wheel, and laser are different items. They behave completely independently of each other. The wheel spins, the laser rotates etc. Yet we can connect them together to create a building, vehicle, space station and so on.

If you are still not clear about this then don’t worry. We’ll be breaking it all down into simple terms in the rest of this post.

 

Advantages of Using Objects

Treating parts of our code as blocks provide us with a lot of great advantages

1. It allows us to build an application one block at a time.
2. It is much easier to test individual parts of an application.
3. Updating code won’t cause problems in other parts of the application.
4. It is easy to add objects between applications.

 

 

Disadvantages of Using Objects

With most things in life there are pros and cons. Using VBA class modules is no different. The following are the disadvantages of using class module to create objects

1. It takes more time initially to build applications*.
2. It is not always easy to clearly define what an object is.
3. People new to classes and objects can find them difficult to understand at first.

*If you create an application using objects it will take longer to create it initially as you have to spend more time planning and designing it. However, in the long run it will save you a huge amount of time. Your code will be easier to manage, update and reuse.

 

Creating a Simple Class Module

If you would like to see working examples of this code you can download the source code from the top of this post.

Let’s look at a very simple example of creating a class module and using it in our code.

To create a class module we right-click in the Project window and then select Insert and Class Module

 

 

 

Our new class is called Class1. We can change the name in the Properties window as the following screenshot shows:

 

 

Let’s change the name of the class module to clsCustomer. Then we will add a variable to the class module like this:

Public Name As String

 

 
We can now use this class module in any module(standard or class) in our workbook. For example

' Create the object from the class module 
Dim oCustomer As New clsCustomer

' Set the customer name
oCustomer.Name = "John"

' Print the name to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)
Debug.Print oCustomer.Name

 

Class Module versus Objects

People who are new to using classes and VBA class modules, often get confused between what is a class and what is an object.

Let’s look at a real world example. Think of a mass produced item like a coffee mug. A design of the mug is created first. Then, thousands of coffee mugs are created from this design.

This is similar to how class modules and objects work.

The class module can be thought of as the design.

The object can be thought of as the item that is created from the design.

 

The New keyword in VBA is what we use to create an object from a class module. For example:

' Creating objects using new
Dim oItem As New Class1
Dim oCustomer1 As New clsCustomer
Dim coll As New Collection

 

Note: We don’t use New with items such as Workbooks and Worksheets. See When New is not required for more information.

 

VBA Class Modules Versus VBA Normal Modules

Writing code in a class module is almost the same as writing code in a normal module. We can use the same code we use in normal modules. It’s how this code is used which is very different.

Let’s look at the two main differences between the class and the normal module. These often cause confusion among new users.

 

Difference 1 – How the modules are used

If you want to use a sub/function etc. from a class module you must create the object first.

For example, imagine we have two identical PrintCustomer subs. One is in a class module and one is in a normal module…

' CLASS MODULE CODE - clsCustomer
Public Sub PrintCustomer()
    Debug.Print "Sample Output"
End Sub

 

' NORMAL MODULE CODE 
Public Sub PrintCustomer()
    Debug.Print "Sample Output"
End Sub

 

You will notice the code for both is exactly the same.

To use the PrintCustomer sub from the class module, you must first create an object of that type

' Other Module
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseCustomer()

    Dim oCust As New clsCustomer
    oCust.PrintCustomer

End Sub

 

To use PrintCustomer from the normal module you can call it directly

' Other Module
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseCustomer()

    PrintCustomer

End Sub

 

Difference 2 – Number of copies

When you create a variable in a normal module there is only one copy of it. For a class module, there is one copy of the variable for each object you create.

 

For example, imagine we create a variable StudentName in both a class and normal module:

' NORMAL MODULE
Public StudentName As String

 

' CLASS MODULE called clsStudent
Public StudentName As String

 

For the normal module variable there will only be one copy of this variable in our application.

StudentName = "John"

 

For the class module, a new copy of the variable StudentName is created each time a new object is created.

Dim student1 As New clsStudent
Dim student2 As New clsStudent

student1.StudentName = "Bill"
student2.StudentName = "Ted"

When you fully understand VBA class modules, these differences will seem obvious.

The Parts of a Class Module

There are four different items in a class module. These are

1. Methods – functions/subs.
2. Member variables – variables.
3. Properties– types of functions/subs that behave like variables.
4. Events – subs that are triggered by an event.

You can see they are all either functions, subs or variables.

Let’s have a quick look at class that has examples of each of these:

' CLASS MODULE CODE from clsAccount
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/

' Member variable
Private m_balance As Double

' Properties
Property Get Balance() As Double
    Balance = m_balance
End Property

Property Let Balance(value As Double)
    m_balance = value
End Property

' Event - triggered when class created
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
    m_balance = 100
End Sub

' Methods
Public Sub Withdraw(amount As Double)
    m_balance = m_balance - amount
End Sub

Public Sub Deposit(amount As Double)
    m_balance = m_balance + amount
End Sub

The following code demonstrates how this class could be used:

' This sub uses the clsAccount class
' The results are printed to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/
Sub Demo_clsAccount()

    Dim oAccount As New clsAccount
    
    ' Print the balance
    Debug.Print "Starting balance is: " & oAccount.Balance

    ' Deposit money
    oAccount.Deposit 25

    ' Print the balance
    Debug.Print "Balance after deposit is: " & oAccount.Balance
    
    ' Withdraw Money
    oAccount.Withdraw 100

    ' Print the balance
    Debug.Print "Balance after withdrawl is: " & oAccount.Balance
    
End Sub

If we run the code we will get the following:
Starting balance is: 100
Balance after deposit is: 125
Balance after withdrawl is: 25

Now that we have seen examples, let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

 

Class Module Methods

Methods refer to the procedures of the class. In VBA procedures are subs and functions. Like member variables they can be Public or Private.

Let’s look at an example:

' CLASS MODULE CODE for clsExample
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/

' Public procedures can be called from outside the object
Public Sub PrintText(text As String)
    Debug.Print text
End Sub

Public Function Calculate(amount As Double) As Double
    Calculate = amount - GetDeduction
End Function

' private procedures can only be called from within the Class Module
Private Function GetDeduction() As Double
    GetDeduction = 2.78
End Function

 

We can use the clsExample class module like this:

' Sub used to demonstrate Class clsExample
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/
Public Sub ClassMembers()
    
    Dim oSimple As New clsExample
    
    oSimple.PrintText "Hello"
     
    Dim total As Double
    total = oSimple.Calculate(22.44)
     
    Debug.Print total

End Sub

 

Class Module Member Variables

The member variable is very similar to the normal variable we use in VBA. The difference is we use Public or Private instead of Dim.

' CLASS MODULE CODE

Private Balance As Double
Public AccountID As String

Note: Dim and Private do exactly the same thing but the convention is to use Dim in sub/functions and to use Private outside sub/functions.

 

The Public keyword means the variable can be accessed from outside the class module. For example:

' This code will give an ERROR!!
Sub Demo_BankAccount()

    Dim oAccount As New clsBankAccount
    
    ' Valid - AccountID is public
    oAccount.AccountID = "499789"
    
    ' ERROR - Balance is private
    oAccount.Balance = 678.9
    
End Sub

 

In the above example, we cannot access Balance because it is declared as Private. We can only use a Private variable within the class module. We can use in a function/sub in the class module e.g.

' CLASS MODULE CODE
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Private Balance As Double

Public Sub SetBalance()
    Balance = 100
    Debug.Print Balance
End Sub

 

It is considered poor practice to have public member variables. This is because you are allowing code outside the object to interfere with how the class works. The purpose of the using classes is so that we hide what is happening from the caller.

To avoid the user directly talking to our member variables we use Properties.

 

Class Module Properties

1. Get – returns an object or value from the class
2. Let – sets a value in the class
3. Set – sets an object in the class

 

Format of VBA Property

The normal format for the properties are as follows:

Public Property Get () As Type
End Property

Public Property Let (varname As Type )
End Property

Public Property Set (varname As Type )
End Property

We have seen already that the Property is simply a type of sub. The purpose of the Property is to allow the caller to get and set values.

 

Why we use Properties

Why can’t we just make the variables Public and use them directly?

Let’s explain with some examples. Imagine we have a class that maintains a list of Countries. We could store the list as an array

' Use array to store countries
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Public arrCountries As Variant

' Set size of array when class is initialized
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
    ReDim arrCountries(1 To 1000)
End Sub

 

When the user wants to get the number of countries in the list they could do this:

' NORMAL MODULE CODE
Dim oCountry As New clsCountry

' Get the number of items
NumCountries = UBound(oCountry.arrCountries) - LBound(oCountry.arrCountries) + 1

 

There are two major problems with the above code:

1. To get the number of countries you need to know how the list is stored e.g. Array.
2. If we change the Array to a Collection, we need to change all code that reference the array directly.

 

To solve these problems we can create a function to return the number of countries

' CLASS MODULE CODE - clsCountryList
' Array
Private arrCountries() As String

Public Function Count() As Long
    Count = UBound(arrCountries) + 1
End Function

 

We then use it like this:

' MODULE CODE
Dim oCountries As New clsCountries

Debug.Print "Number of countries is " & oCountries.Count

 

This code solves the two problems we listed above. We can change our Array to a Collection and the caller code will still work e.g.

' CLASS MODULE CODE
' Collection
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Private collCountries() As Collection

Public Function Count() As Long
    Count = collCountries.Count
End Function

The caller is oblivious to how the countries are stored. All the caller needs to know is that the Count function will return the number of countries.

As we have just seen, a sub or function provides a solution to the above problems. However, using a Property can provide a more elegant solution.

 

Using a Property instead of a Function/Sub

Instead of the creating a Count Function we can create a Count Property. As you can see below they are very similar:

' Replace this
Public Function Count() As Long
    Count = UBound(m_countries) - LBound(m_countries) + 1
End Function

' With this
Property Get Count() As Long
    Count = UBound(m_countries) - LBound(m_countries) + 1
End Property

 

In this scenario, there is not a lot of difference between using the Property and using a function. However, there are differences. We normally create a Get and Let property like this:

' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/

Private m_totalCost As Double

Property Get totalCost() As Long
     totalCost = m_totalCost
End Property

Property Let totalCost(value As Long)
     m_totalCost = value
End Property

 

Using Let allows us to treat the property like a variable. So we can do this

oAccount.TotalCost = 6

 

The second difference is that using Let and Get allows us to use the same name when referencing the Get or Let property. So we can use the property like a variable. This is the purpose of using Properties over a sub and function.

oAccount.TotalCost = 6
value = oAccount.TotalCost 

 

If we used a function and a sub then we cannot get the behaviour of a variable. Instead we have to call two different procedures e.g.

oAccount.SetTotalCost 6
value = oAccount.GetTotalCost

 

You can also see that when we used Let we can assign the value like a variable. When we use SetTotalCost , we had to pass it as a parameter.

 

The Property in a Nutshell

1. The Property hides the details of the implementation from the caller.
2. The Property allows us to provide the same behaviour as a variable.

 

Types of VBA Property

There are three types of Properties. We have seen Get and Let already. The one we haven’t looked at is Set.

Set is similar to Let but it is used for an object(see Assigning VBA Objects for more detail about this).

Originally in Visual Basic, the Let keyword was used to assign a variable. In fact, we can still use it if we like.

' These line are equivalent
Let a = 7
a = 7

 

So we use Let to assign a value to a variable and we use Set to assign an object to an object variable.

' Using Let
Dim a As Long
Let a = 7

' Using Set
Dim coll1 As Collection, coll2 As Collection
Set coll1 = New Collection
Set coll2 = coll1

 

• Let is used to assign a value to a basic variable type.
• Set is used to assign an object to an object variable.

 

In the following example, we use Get and Let properties for a string variable:

' CLASS MODULE CODE for clsPerson
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/

' SET/LET PROPERTIES for a variable
Private m_name As String

' Get/Let Properties
Property Get name() As String
    name = m_name
End Property

Property Let name(name As String)
    m_name = name
End Property

 

We can then use the name properties like this:

' Testing Let and Set for the clsPerson Class
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/
Sub TestLetSet()

    Dim name As String
    Dim oPerson As New clsPerson
    
    ' Let Property
    oPerson.name = "Bill"
    
    ' Get Property
    name = oPerson.name

End Sub

 

In the next example, we use Get and Set properties for an object variable:

' CLASS MODULE CODE for clsCurrency
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/

Private m_Prices As Collection

' Get/Set Properties
Property Get Prices() As Collection
    Set Prices = m_Prices
End Property

Property Set Prices(newPrices As Collection)
    Set m_Prices = newPrices
End Property

 

We can then use the properties like this:

' The code below demonstrates how to use the Let\Set properties with a class.
'
' 1. The sub creates a collection and adds value.
' 2. We then add it to the clsCurrency class object using the Set Property.
' 3. We then read it from the class object usiing the Get property.
'
' https://excelmacromastery.com/vba-class-modules/
Sub TestLetSet()
    
    ' Create a collection and add prices
    Dim Prices As New Collection
    Prices.Add 21.23
    Prices.Add 22.12
    Prices.Add 20.12
        
    Dim oCurrency As New clsCurrency
    
    ' Uses the Set property of clsCurrency to
    ' add the collection to the class
    Set oCurrency.Prices = Prices

    Dim PricesCopy As Collection
    ' Uses the Get property of clsCurrency
    ' to read the collection from the class
    Set PricesCopy = oCurrency.Prices
    
    ' Print the results to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)
    PrintCollection Prices, "Prices"
    PrintCollection PricesCopy, "Copy"
    
End Sub

' Print the contents of a Collection to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)
Sub PrintCollection(c As Collection, name As String)

    Debug.Print vbNewLine & "Printing " & name & ":"

    Dim item As Variant
    For Each item In c
        Debug.Print item
    Next item

End Sub

 

We use the Get property to return the values for both items. Notice that even though we use the Get Property to return the Collection, we still need to use the Set keyword to assign it.

One very important thing to understand is that when we use Set we are still referencing the same collection. Set is not creating a copy of the collection. You can read more about this here

Class Module Events

If you to see working examples of this code you can download the source code from the top of this post.

A class module has two events

1. Initialize – occurs when a new object of the class is created.
2. Terminate – occurrs when the class object is deleted.

In Object-Oriented languages like C++, these events are referred to as the Constructor and the Destructor. In most languages, you can pass parameters to a constructor but in VBA you cannot. We can use a Class Factory to get around this issue as we will see below.

 

Initialize

Let’s create a very simple class module called clsSimple with Initialize and Terminate events:

' CLASS MODULE CODE
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
    MsgBox "Class is being initialized"
End Sub

Private Sub Class_Terminate()
    MsgBox "Class is being terminated"
End Sub

Public Sub PrintHello()
    Debug.Print "Hello"
End Sub

 

In the following example, we use Dim and New to create the object.

In this case, oSimple is not created until we reference it for the first time e.g.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub ClassEventsInit2()

    Dim oSimple As New clsSimple
    
    ' Initialize occurs here
    oSimple.PrintHello

End Sub

 

When we use Set and New together the behaviour is different. In this case the object is created when Set is used e.g.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub ClassEventsInit()

    Dim oSimple As clsSimple
    
    ' Initialize occurs here
    Set oSimple = New clsSimple
    
    oSimple.PrintHello
   
End Sub

 

Note: For more information about the different between using New with Dim and using New with Set see Subtle Differences of Dim Versus Set

As I said earlier, you cannot pass a parameter to Initialize. If you need to do this you need a function to create the object first

' CLASS MODULE - clsSimple
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Public Sub Init(Price As Double) 

End Sub 

' NORMAL MODULE
Public Sub Test()

    ' Use CreateSimpleObject function
    Dim oSimple As clsSimple
    Set oSimple = CreateSimpleObject(199.99)

End Sub

Public Function CreateSimpleObject(Price As Double) As clsSimple

    Dim oSimple As New clsSimple
    oSimple.Init Price

    Set CreateSimpleObject = oSimple

End Function 

We will expand on this CreateSimpleObject in Example 2 to create a Class Factory.

 

Terminate

The Terminate event occurs when the object is deleted. This can happen if we set the variable to Nothing or the variable goes out of scope. See here for more information about this.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub ClassEventsTerm()

    Dim oSimple As clsSimple
    Set oSimple = New clsSimple
    
    ' Terminate occurs here
    Set oSimple = Nothing
   
End Sub

 

If we don’t set the object to Nothing then VBA will automatically delete it when it goes out of scope.

What this means is that if we create an object in a procedure, when that procedure ends VBA will delete any objects that were created.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub ClassEventsTerm2()

    Dim oSimple As New clsSimple
    
    ' Initialize occurs here
    oSimple.PrintHello

   ' oSimple is deleted when we exit this Sub calling Terminate
End Sub

 

Class Module Example 1

In this example, we are going to look at a very common use of a Class module.

Imagine we have the following data

We want to read the Albums based on a range of years and then create various reports.

We could use a 2D Array for this or a Collection of collections e.g.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
For i = 2 To rg.Rows.Count
    
    Year = rg.Cells(i, 3)
    If startYear <= Year And endYear >= Year Then
        
        ' Create a new collection for each row
        Set rowColl = New Collect
 
        ' Add artist 
        rowColl.Add rg.Cells(i, 1).Value
        ' Add Title 
        rowColl.Add rg.Cells(i, 2).Value
        
        ' and so on

        ' Add row collection to main collection
        coll.Add rowColl

    End If
    
Next i

As you can imagine this code would get messy very quickly.

 

 

Lucky for us we have VBA class modules to make our life easier. We can create a class module to store the items.

' clsAlbum class module
Private m_sArtist As String
Private m_sTitle As String
Private m_sYear As String
Private m_sGenre As String
Private m_sSales As String

' Properties
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Public Property Get Artist() As String
    Artist = m_sArtist
End Property
Public Property Let Artist(ByVal sArtist As String)
    m_sArtist = sArtist
End Property

' etc

 

Each time we want to add a record we can do it as follows:

' Declare the Variable
Dim oAlbum As clsAlbum

' Create new album
Set oAlbum = New clsAlbum

' Add the details
oAlbum.Artist = rg.Cells(i, 1)
oAlbum.Title = rg.Cells(i, 2)
oAlbum.Year = rg.Cells(i, 3)
oAlbum.Genre = rg.Cells(i, 4)
oAlbum.Sales = rg.Cells(i, 5)

' Add the album object to the collection
coll.Add oAlbum

You can see that this makes our code much more readable. It is clear what Artist, Title etc. are being used for.

 

We can then easily use this data to create reports, write to files etc.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub PrintAlbum(coll As Collection)
    
    Dim oAlbum As clsAlbum

    For Each oAlbum In coll
        ' Print out the title and artist for each album
        Debug.Print oAlbum.Title, oAlbum.Artist
    Next
    
End Sub

 

Below is the full code for this example:

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub CreateReport()

    Dim coll As Collection
    ' read the data
    Set coll = ReadAlbums(1990, 2001)
    
    ' Print the album details
    PrintAlbum coll

    ' Print the total sales
    PrintTotalSales coll
    
End Sub

Function ReadAlbums(startYear As Long, endYear As Long) _
              As Collection
    
    Dim rg As Range
    Set rg = Sheet1.Range("A1").CurrentRegion
    
    ' Create a collection to store the albums
    Dim coll As New Collection
    Dim oAlbum As clsAlbum
    
    Dim i As Long, Year As Long
    For i = 2 To rg.Rows.Count
        
        Year = rg.Cells(i, 3)
        If startYear <= Year And endYear >= Year Then
            ' Create new album
            Set oAlbum = New clsAlbum
            ' Add the details
            oAlbum.Artist = rg.Cells(i, 1)
            oAlbum.Title = rg.Cells(i, 2)
            oAlbum.Year = Year
            oAlbum.Genre = rg.Cells(i, 4)
            oAlbum.sales = rg.Cells(i, 5)
            ' Add the album objecdt to the collection
            coll.Add oAlbum
        End If
        
    Next i
    
    Set ReadAlbums = coll
    
End Function

Sub PrintAlbum(coll As Collection)
    
    Dim oAlbum As clsAlbum
    For Each oAlbum In coll
        Debug.Print oAlbum.Title, oAlbum.Artist
    Next
    
End Sub

Sub PrintTotalSales(coll As Collection)
    
    Dim oAlbum As clsAlbum, sales As Double
    For Each oAlbum In coll
        sales = sales + oAlbum.sales
    Next
    
    Debug.Print "Total number sales is " & sales
    
End Sub

 

Class Module Example 2

In this example, we’re going to take things a bit further. We’re going to look at some neat tricks when using objects.

Imagine you have a list of products like in the image below.

The products have different fields so we need to use a different class module for each product type. One type for a Book row, one type for a Film row.

We’ll create our class modules first. As you can imagine the are very similar for both product types

' CLASS MODULE - clsBook
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
' Member variables
Private m_Title As String
Private m_Year As Long

' Properties
Property Get ItemType() As String
    ItemType = "Book"
End Property
Property Get Title() As String
    Title = m_Title
End Property
Property Get Year() As Long
    Year = m_Year
End Property

' Methods
Public Sub Init(rg As Range)
    m_Title = rg.Cells(1, 2)
    m_Year = CLng(rg.Cells(1, 4))
End Sub

Public Sub PrintToImmediate()
    Debug.Print ItemType, m_Title, m_Year
End Sub

 

' CLASS MODULE - clsFilm
' https://excelmacromastery.com/
' Member variables
Private m_Title As String
Private m_Year As Long

' Properties
Property Get ItemType() As String
    ItemType = "Film"
End Property
Property Get Title() As String
    Title = m_Title
End Property
Property Get Year() As Long
    Year = m_Year
End Property

' Methods
Sub Init(rg As Range)
    m_Title = rg.Cells(1, 2)
    m_Year = CLng(rg.Cells(1, 5))
End Sub

Public Sub PrintToImmediate()
    Debug.Print ItemType, m_Title, m_Year
End Sub

As you can see, the only real difference is the Init sub.

 

When we read each record we need to determine if it is a Book or Film. Then we create the appropriate object. You would imagine we would have to create a variable for each type e.g.

' One variable required for each type
Dim oBook As clsBook
Dim oFilm As clsFilm

' If book do this
Set oBook = New clsBook

' Else If film do this
Set oFilm = New clsFilm

If we had lots of different types this would get very messy indeed. The good news is we only need to use one variable!

In VBA we can declare a variable as a Variant. When we use a Variant we are essentially saying “We will decide the type of variable when the code is running”.

 

This is very useful when dealing with objects and allows us to get away with using one variable e.g.

' Only one variable required
Dim oItem As Variant

' If book set type to clsBook
Set oItem = New clsBook

' Else If film set type to clsFilm
Set oItem = New clsFilm

 

This is really useful as we only need one variable no matter how many objects we have.

A second advantage of using a Variant is this. If each Class Module has a sub/function with the same name and parameters, we can use the same variable to call it

 

So imagine clsBook has a function called InitBook and clsFilm has a function called InitFilm. We would need to do this:

' If clsBook
If Type = "Book" Then
    oItem.InitBook
ElseIf Type = "Film" Then
    oItem.InitFilm

 

However, if they have the same name, e.g. Init, we can replace the If\ElseIf lines of code with one line:

    ' this will call the Init sub of whatever type oItem is set to
    oItem.Init

We can now create a function to create the appropriate object. In Object Oriented Programming, we have what is called a Class Factory. This is simply a function that creates an object based on a given type.

We saw earlier that the Initialize event does not take parameters. We can call Init in the Class Factory to get around this issue.

The full code for the ClassFactory function is here:

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Function ClassFactory(rg As Range) As Variant

    ' Get product type
    Dim sType As String
    sType = rg.Cells(1, 1)

    ' Create an object based on the type
    Dim oItem As Variant
    Select Case sType
    
        Case "Book":
            Set oItem = New clsBook
        Case "Film":
            Set oItem = New clsFilm
        Case Else
            MsgBox "Invalid type"
    
    End Select
    
    ' Parse the fields to the correct class variables
    oItem.Init rg
    
    ' Return the product object
    Set ClassFactory = oItem
        
End Function

 

This following is our starting sub. In this sub, we read through the worksheet and pass the range to ClassFactory.

It creates the object, passes the range to the object Parse method. Then it returns the object which we add to our Collection.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub ReadProducts()
    
    ' Create the collection
    Dim coll As New Collection
    Dim product As Variant
    
    Dim rg As Range


    ' Read products from the worksheet
    Dim i As Long
    For i = 1 To 2
        Set rg = Sheet1.Range("A" & i & ":E" & i)
        Set product = ClassFactory(rg)
        coll.Add product
    Next

    ' Print the product details to the Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)
    PrintCollection coll

End Sub

 

We can also use the variant object to print the items. As long as both objects have a sub with the same name and parameters(e.g PrintToImmediate) we can call it using a Variant type.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Public Sub PrintCollection(ByRef coll As Collection)
    
    Dim v As Variant
    For Each v In coll
        ' Print items
        v.PrintToImmediate
    Next
    
End Sub

The source code for this post also includes this example using Inheritance(i.e. class interfaces). You can download the code here:

Conclusion

That concludes my post on the VBA Class Modules. In this post, we have looked at the parts of the VBA Class Module and two example cases where you would use them.

It’s important to understand that Classes and Objects is a vast topic. There are countless types of objects you can create and ways you can use them.

If you plan to use Class Modules then my advice is to start simple and get familiar with how to create a simple one. Once you have mastered the basics it will be much easier to move onto more challenging scenarios.

What’s Next?

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