Can I assign an ASCII character to a VBA constant?

[JenniferMurphy]

Is there any way to assign various Unicode characters to string constants in VBA? This code works.

Dim DownArrow As String
DownArrow = ChrW(&H2193)
Dim UpArrow As String
UpArrow = ChrW(&H2191)

But I was hoping for something like

Const DownArrow as String = &H2193
Const DownArrow as String = "2193"x

Thanks

 

[AlphaFrog]

I suppose you could. Though I don't know why.

Const DownArrow As String = "&H2193"

You still would have to convert the Unicode string constant to the character.

ChrW(DownArrow)

 

[JenniferMurphy]

I suppose you could. Though I don't know why.

Const DownArrow As String = "&H2193"

You still would have to convert the Unicode string constant to the character.

ChrW(DownArrow)

That's pretty much the same as the original solution

So is there no way to define a Const that contains the down arrow symbol like I can do with other symbols, like this:

Const UpArrow As String = "^"

 

[AlphaFrog]

As best I can tell, no.

 

[Scott Huish]

You could define variables as public and initialize those values and call that macro first in your sub.

Public downarrow As String
Public uparrow As String

Sub InitializeConstants()
downarrow = ChrW(8595)
uparrow = ChrW(8593)
End Sub

Sub test()
Call InitializeConstants
Range("A1") = downarrow
Range("A2") = uparrow
End Sub

They're not really constants but I used that for readability.

 

[JenniferMurphy]

You could define variables as public and initialize those values and call that macro first in your sub.

Public downarrow As String
Public uparrow As String

Sub InitializeConstants()
downarrow = ChrW(8595)
uparrow = ChrW(8593)
End Sub

Sub test()
Call InitializeConstants
Range("A1") = downarrow
Range("A2") = uparrow
End Sub

They're not really constants but I used that for readability.

Yeah, they are not constants in the strict sense of the word, but that approach does allow me to define them once and use them multiple times.

 

[RoryA]

You could also use functions.

 

[JenniferMurphy]

You could also use functions.

Do you mean ChrW as in my original post or something different?

 

[RoryA]

I mean you'd have something like:

Function DownArrow() as String
DownArrow = ChrW(&H2193)
end function

so you can just use DownArrow in your code wherever you need it.

 

[JenniferMurphy]

I mean you'd have something like:

Function DownArrow() as String
DownArrow = ChrW(&H2193)
end function

so you can just use DownArrow in your code wherever you need it.

That gave me an idea. I already have a Constants module in my add-in module. I added this code:

' Character constants that cannot be entered directly
' To use them, do something like =ChrW(charUpArrow)
Public Const charDnArrow As String = "&H2191"
Public Const charUpArrow As String = "&H2193"

Then in any other code, all I need to do is this:

Dim symLocal As String        'Use down arrow for local names
symLocal = ChrW(charDnArrow)     'From Constants module
Dim symGlobal As String       'Use up arrow for global names
symGlobal = ChrW(charUpArrow)    'From Constants module

Comments?