Visual Basic

Introduction to Visual Basic

History of Visual Basic

VISUAL BASIC is evolved from the earlier DOS version called BASIC. BASIC means "Beginners Allpurpose Symbolic Instruction Code". It has been around for more than 35 years. BASIC was further developed as Visual Basic to make it compatible with today's environment. Microsoft created the enhanced version of BASIC, called visual basic.

The bottom line of the enhancement is that VISUAL BASIC can create Windows programs whereas BASIC could only create DOS programs. It means that BASIC programming is done in a text-only environment and VISUAL BASIC programming is done in a graphical environment.

Visual Basic (part 2)

Arrays

Introduction of Array

An array is the collection of similar data types.The individual elements of an array is identified by using an index.

Each index number in an array is allocated individual memory space. Hence users declare arrays of larger size than required.

Array helps in creating smaller and simpler code in many situation.You can setup loops that deal efficiently with any number of cases by using the index number.

A loop is used to execute a group of statements repeatedly, based on a condition.

Visual Basic (part 3)

Functions

Visual Basic Functions

A function is a preprogrammed calculation .It can be carried out on request from any point in a Visual Basic program.

A function takes one or more arguments and returns a single value and it can be included in an expression.

Argument:

It is a value on which a function or procedure operates.

For example, in the Visual Basic statement Str(10),

number 10 is the argument.

Visual Basic includes built-in functions like Sqr, Cos or Chr etc.We are discussing some of them here:

Visual Basic (part 4)

Creating Simple Application in Visual Basic

Structure Of A Visual Basic Application

A VISUAL BASIC Application (Project) will be of .VBP extension and related forms are saved with .frm extension. A Simple VISUAL BASIC Project (.VBP).