Declares a user-defined event.

Syntax

[Public] Event procedurename [(arglist)]

The Event statement has these parts:

Part Description
Public Optional. Specifies that the Event visible throughout the project.Events types are Public by default. Note that events can only be raised in the module in which they are declared.
procedurename Required. Name of the event; follows standard variable naming conventions.

The arglist argument has the following syntax and parts:

[ByVal | ByRef] varname[( )] [As type]

Part Description
ByVal Optional. Indicates that the argument is passed by value.
ByRef Optional. Indicates that the argument is passed by reference.ByRef is the default in Visual Basic.
varname Required. Name of the variable representing the argument being passed to the procedure; follows standard variable naming conventions.
type Optional. Data type of the argument passed to the procedure; may be Byte, Boolean, Integer, Long, Currency, Single, Double, Decimal (not currently supported), Date, String (variable length only), Object, Variant, a user-defined type, or an object type.

Remarks

Once the event has been declared, use the RaiseEvent statement to fire the event. A syntax error occurs if an Event declaration appears in a standard module. An event can't be declared to return a value. A typical event might be declared and raised as shown in the following fragments:

' Declare an event at module level of a class module Event LogonCompleted (UserName as String) Sub RaiseEvent LogonCompleted("AntoineJan") End Sub 
Note
You can declare event arguments just as you do arguments of procedures, with the following exceptions: events cannot have named arguments, Optional arguments, or ParamArray arguments. Events do not have return values.

Example

The following example uses events to count off seconds during a demonstration of the fastest 100 meter race. The code illustrates all of the event-related methods, properties, and statements, including the Event statement.

The class that raises an event is the event source, and the classes that implement the event are the sinks. An event source can have multiple sinks for the events it generates. When the class raises the event, that event is fired on every class that has elected to sink events for that instance of the object.

The example also uses a form (

Form1
) with a button (
Command1
), a label (
Label1
), and two text boxes (
Text1
and
Text2
). When you click the button, the first text box displays "From Now" and the second starts to count seconds. When the full time (9.84 seconds) has elapsed, the first text box displays "Until Now" and the second displays "9.84"

The code for

Form1
specifies the initial and terminal states of the form. It also contains the code executed when events are raised.
Option Explicit Private WithEvents mText As TimerState Private Sub Command1_Click() Text1.Text = "From Now" Text1.Refresh Text2.Text = "0" Text2.Refresh Call mText.TimerTask(9.84) End Sub Private Sub Form_Load() Command1.Caption = "Click to Start Timer" Text1.Text = "" Text2.Text = "" Label1.Caption = "The fastest 100 meter run took this long:" Set mText = New TimerState End Sub Private Sub mText_ChangeText() Text1.Text = "Until Now" Text2.Text = "9.84" End Sub Private Sub mText_UpdateTime(ByVal dblJump As Double) Text2.Text = Str(Format(dblJump, "0")) DoEvents End Sub 

The remaining code is in a class module named TimerState. The Event statements declare the procedures initiated when events are raised.

Option Explicit Public Event UpdateTime(ByVal dblJump As Double) Public Event ChangeText() Public Sub TimerTask(ByVal Duration As Double) Dim dblStart As Double Dim dblSecond As Double Dim dblSoFar As Double dblStart = Timer dblSoFar = dblStart Do While Timer < dblStart + Duration If Timer - dblSoFar >= 1 Then dblSoFar = dblSoFar + 1 RaiseEvent UpdateTime(Timer - dblStart) End If Loop RaiseEvent ChangeText End Sub