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KeyCode arrays

Lars Schindler

2 years ago

Hello everyone,

I am currently trying to rule out KeyCodes.
Expressions like 'If Not (KeyCode >= 48 And KeyCode <= 57)' work quite well.
But instead of 'If Not KeyCode = 8 And Not KeyCode = 27 And Not Keycode = 46' I wanted to try something like 'If Not KeyCode In (8, 27, 46)', which unfortunately doesn't seem to work.
The next idea was something with arrays, which looked like this in ChatGPT:

Details

Function IsInArray(valToBeFound As Integer, arr As Variant) As Boolean
    Dim i As Integer
    IsInArray = False
    For i = LBound(arr) To UBound(arr)
        If arr(i) = valToBeFound Then
            IsInArray = True
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next i
End Function

Private Sub Form_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
    ' List of KeyCodes that are to be ignored
    Dim ignoreKeys As Variant
    ignoreKeys = Array(8, 27, 46) ' Insert the desired keycodes here

    If Not IsInArray(KeyCode, ignoreKeys) Then
        ' Your action if the KeyCode is not in the list
        MsgBox 'KeyCode: ' & KeyCode & ' was pressed.'
    End If
End Sub

And that in turn brings me to my question:
Can't this be done a bit shorter and more succinctly, perhaps without an additional function?

	Kevin Yip @Reply 2 years ago
An array could be useful if you have lots of values to be checked. If you have only a few values, you can use Select Case to check them.

	Lars Schindler OP @Reply 2 years ago
All the time I was searching for a suitable operator, I had the feeling that I must have overlooked something that didn't require an array. 'Case 8, 27, 46' actually seems more intuitive to me. ChatGPT has also recognized it. ;-)

Thomas Gonder @Reply

2 years ago

In this example a simple Select case will work fine. Good job pointing that out Kevin Y.
There are cases where variable string arrays come in VERY handy. They work similar to the Split()().
I wrote these in assembly many years ago for another database system. It took me a couple of weeks to write the routines in VBA, and it was quite painful to do it again. They are part of the ADS template that I give an evaluation of.
This is how it might work in more elaborate situations:
MyString = "a]b]c"
saPos = fSaLocate(MyString, "B") ' saPos = 2
saFind = fSaExtract("x]y]z", saPos) ' saFind = "y"
MyNewString = fSaReplace(MyString, saFind, saPos) ' MyNewString = "a]y]c" (MyString remains "a]b]c")
MyNewString = fSaDelete(MyNewString, 1) ' MyNewString = "y]c"
HowMany = fSaCount(MyString) ' HowMany = 3
MyString = fSaInsert(MyString, "wow", HowMany, "]") ' MyString = "a]b]wow]c"

The optional argument for the delimiter is "]", but it can be changed to any character. (I reserve "] / \" for my delimiters)
These functions aren't usually used for user data, I use it mostly inside coding for control.
The interesting thing is, Access is a variable length string model in its "object oriented" db approach (as compared to fixed length field dbs). So, something similar to these routines must exist under the hood in Access. It's too bad they didn't make them available as VBA functions. So Lars, you didn't overlook anything, Microsoft did (IMHO).

	Thomas Gonder @Reply 2 years ago
To wrap it up, For Lars example, in the ADS, I would write: If fSaLocate("8]27]46", Keycode) = 0 then....do good stuff.

	Lars Schindler OP @Reply 2 years ago
Hello Thomas, thanks for your input and please excuse the late response. It will probably take me a while to understand the code in all its depth, but I think I at least have an initial idea. At the same time, I'm already busy with other codes - as it happens. :-)

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