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Re: Time is a reserved name in VBA

 

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Richard,
Thanks for the input you are always a great source of information.
Reserved was probably the wrong word.? Microsoft calls Time a VBA keyword.


For others to see the problem in action without having to even be concerned with the IB api.
Create a module and put this code in it:

Option Explicit

Function TestTimeProblem()
??? TestTimeProblem = Time
End Function

Now in a cell on a worksheet enter this
=TestTimeProblem()
This should return the current time...

Go back to the module and enter these additional lines of code

'Sub MakeTimetime(time As String)
'
'End Sub

'Sub FixTimeBackToTime(Time As String)
'
'End Sub

Now un-comment the MakeTimetime routine and the Time in the function will change to time.
Note that the function still works which as Richard indicated demonstrates that VBA is case agnostic.

To fix back uncomment the FixTimeBackToTime sub and all will get changed to Time...

It's hard to believe it has been almost 30 years since IB introduced their API.? Sorry that none of the developers hang out on this thread... 

    
On 1/31/2025 7:49 AM, Richard L King
      wrote:

    

    

				
					
					

					



      
      
      
      

        
That’s
            not quite right.

        
?

        
‘Time’
            is NOT a VBA function: it’s a property of the VBA DateTime
            module (you can see this using the ObjectBrowser). It
            returns a variant with a vbDate variant type.

        
?

        
Property
            names CAN be re-used as variable names (unlike method names,
            which cannot: Dim Len as String will fail).

        
?

        
Your
            little function doesn’t illustrate anything: it will return
            the vbDate variant returned by the Time property. It doesn’t
            even use Time (or time) as a variable.

        
?

        
You
            say ‘Notice that the Time will be changed to time’.
          This is nothing to do with conflicts. It’s because VBA (and
          indeed VB6, but fortunately not VB.Net) are very bad at
          managing name spellings. If you declare a variable or a method
          or property called ‘MyName’ somewhere, and then declare
          something else called ‘myname’ anywhere within the same
          project or module, then the original ‘MyName’ will be
          displayed as ‘myname’ (though the actual code won’t be
          changed).

        
?

        
It seems that the VBA/VB6 compilers have a
          single name table that doesn’t record the context of a name
          declaration (and remember VBA and VB6 are case-insensitive) .
          Thus when ‘myname’ is declared, the original table entry for
          ‘MyName’ is overwritten with ‘myname’, and that’s what you’ll
          see everywhere, even on the original ‘MyName’ declaration.

        
?

        
This is one of the most annoying features
          of VBA/VB6, especially where you have references to other
          components that use the same names with different
          capitalisation, in which case what you see will depend on the
          order of the references to these other components.

        
?

        
I don’t think this actually ‘needs to be
          fixed’: after all it’s been like this for well over 20 years –
          if it were a real problem, someone would have fixed it by now.
          Are you able to point to any specific instances that you think
          don’t work properly?

        
?

        
And no, IB Developers don’t appear to
          monitor this group. There used to be an IB staff member in the
          group, which was actually very helpful due to his insider
          knowledge, but no longer (at least, not that we know of).

        
?

        
If
            you really think you need to bring this to IB’s attention,
            you can either raise a ticket on your Account Management
            page, or get access to the GitHub repository and raise an
            issue. But I can more or less guarantee that you won’t get
            any traction on this: far too much work for zero benefit.

        
?

        
Richard

      

      
    

    

  


					


				
				
				
			

			
			

	

	
			

			

				
					

				
				
			

			

				

					

				

			

			
			
			

			


				
	



			
		
					
		
	
	
	


		
			
		
		

			
		

		
			

				

					

						

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