VBA - Visual Basic for Applications

If you often have to convert values from Excel files into SQL filter lists for investigation purposes, this VBA function will save you a lot of time.

Thanks for this function go to Sascha Hombach a highly skilled IT Consultant, who initially developed it for HP ALM filter Strings. I only adjusted it for the use case described above.

Source Code

If you ever wondered how to determine, if an opened workbook was saved before below you'll find a code snippet that might do the job for you.

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'@Author - Alexander Bolte 
'@ChangeDate - 2014-05-30 
'@Description - Returns true, if a workbooks path property 
'is unequal an empty string. 
'This is true only if the workbook has been saved. 
'@Param wrk - an initialized Excel Workbook object. Function fails, if Nothing is handed. 
'@Returns true, if a given workbook has been saved. Else False.
Public Function wasWorkbookEverSaved(ByRef wrk As Workbook) As Boolean
  Dim ret As Boolean
  
  ret = wrk.path <> ""
  
  wasWorkbookEverSaved = ret
End Function

 

It may seem trivial, but even the smallest things have to be handled carefully when programming.

Therefore I have some standard functions, which handle the creation of new worksheets in my VBA projects. So far I never had trouble with them plus they emphazise NOT to use existing worksheets for your coding. Instead it is better to always create new worksheets. This way you have full control over your programm.

If you start coupling Excel files with source code, you start a war that you cannot win. If your source code relies on a certain status in Excel files, it will fail by time and you spend a lot of time handling errors, which can easily be avoided.

However, here the source code for creating a new worksheet safely.

' @Author - Alexander Bolte
' @ChangeDate - 2014-05-31
' @Description - checks, if a worksheet exists under given name in given workbook.
' @Param myBook - an initialized Excel Workbook, which should be searched for given sheet name.
' @Param sheetName - a String holding the sheets name, which should be searched in given workbook.
' @Returns true, if the sheet exists, else false.
Public Function worksheetExists(ByRef myBook As Workbook, ByVal sheetName As String) As Boolean
Dim ret As Boolean
Dim tmpS As Worksheet

On Error GoTo errHandler:
Set tmpS = myBook.Worksheets(sheetName)
ret = True
Set tmpS = Nothing

errHandler:
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
ret = False
Err.Clear
End If

worksheetExists = ret
End Function


' @Author - Alexander Bolte
' @ChangeDate - 2014-05-31
' @Description - creates a new worksheet with given name in given workbook. If a worksheet already exists under given name, it is deleted and replaced with an empty worksheet.
' @Param myBook - an initialized Excel Workbook, which should be searched for given sheet name.
' @Param sheetName - a String holding the sheets name, which should be created in given workbook.
' @Returns a Worksheet object referencing a newly created worksheet in given workbook.
Public Function createWorksheet(ByRef myBook As Workbook, ByVal sheetName As String) As Worksheet
Dim tmpS As Worksheet

' ### delete the worksheet, if already existing ###
If worksheetExists(myBook, sheetName) Then
myBook.Worksheets(sheetName).Delete
End If
' ### add a new worksheet ###
Set tmpS = myBook.Worksheets.Add
tmpS.Name = sheetName
tmpS.Move myBook.Worksheets(1)

Set createWorksheet = tmpS
End Function

If you do not want Excel to display warning Messages, you can switch them off using the DsiplayAlerts property of the Application object.

' Disable all alerts.
Application.DisplayAlerts = False

Subcategories

This category will hold articles regarding developement in Excel VBA. It will serve as a wiki and an Excel VBA Framework for myself.

Some development tasks reoccur for every customer. Since I am a lazy bum it will be nice to have a central source where I can reuse source code from.

This category holds articles regarding general things in MS Office VBA independent from the MS Office application.  

This category holds articles regarding Access VBA, but also general things I come accross Access and its usage in companies.