Hints and Recipes for VB6

Date and Time examples with formatting options

 strTimeStamp = Date & " " & Format(Time, "HH:mm:ss")
 strMsg = strMsg & "date/time of request: " & Date & " " & Time & vbCrLf
 strSQLdate = Format(Date, "M/d/yyyy")

Combobox

 With cboDelimiter
   .AddItem "TAB"
   .AddItem "PIPE"
   .AddItem "SPACE"
   .AddItem "fancy!"
 End With
 cboDelimiter = "TAB"

Delay without using a Timer control

 Public Sub LongDelay(intSeconds As Long)
   Dim cnt As Double
   cnt = Timer + intSeconds
   Do While Timer < cnt
     DoEvents
   Loop
 End Sub

Quickly determine which option button is selected

Often OptionButton controls are arranged in control arrays. To quickly find the index of the only selected OptionButton control apply this little math trick. The following example assumes there are 3 option buttons in a control array.

intSelected = Option(0).Value * 0 - Option(1).Value * 1 - Option(2).Value * 2

Note that the first operand is always zero, and you can simplify the above expression as follows:

intSelected = -Option(1).Value - Option(2).Value * 2

Credit to Ed Lampman for this VB trick.

Command Line Parameter

This example was taking from the Sales Logix Assistant Program:

Private Function CheckLauncherParamter()
' blnDebug
  If InStr(LCase(Command), "/verified") > 0 Then
    CheckLauncherParamter = True
    blnDebug = False
    mnuFileExit.Enabled = False
  ElseIf InStr(LCase(Command), "/debug") > 0 Then
    CheckLauncherParamter = True
    blnDebug = True
    mnuFileExit.Enabled = True
  Else
    CheckLauncherParamter = False
  End If
End Function