It is common to create a big wall of declaration in a module such as this:
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Private strCompanyName As String Private dteOrderDate As Date Private lngOrderID As Long Private objEmail As Object Private objOutlook As Object |
While the code will compile and work fine, the discoverability and naming of the module level variables does become difficult and unwieldy. To help cut down on this ambiguity, it is recommended to create a private user-defined type instead.
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Private Type TData CompanyName As String OrderDate As Date OrderID As Long Email As Object Outlook As Object End Type Private This As TData |
Note the This variable which holds the UDT. That enables us to then refer to variables in the module in very similar manner to how we can use Me — for example:
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Set This.Outlook = GetOutlook Set This.Email = This.Outlook.CreateItem(olMailItem) |
Or,
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Public Property Get OrderID() As Long OrderID = This.OrderID End Property Public Property Let OrderID(NewValue As Long) This.OrderID = NewValue End Property |
By consistently using This UDT to hold all module-level variables, the naming and references is now much clearer and easier to understand. You do not have to wonder whether strCompanyname is a module-level variable or a private variable scoped to a specific procedure and because it’s in a UDT, shadowing cannot happen since you can simply disambiguate the reference.
