Call statement

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Transfers control to a Sub procedure, Function procedure, or dynamic-link library (DLL) procedure.

Syntax

[ Call ] name [ argumentlist ]

The Call statement syntax has these parts:

Part Description
Call Optional; keyword. If specified, you must enclose argumentlist in parentheses.

For example: Call MyProc(0)
name Required. Name of the procedure to call.
argumentlist Optional. Comma-delimited list of variables, arrays, or expressions to pass to the procedure. Components of argumentlist may include the keywords ByVal or ByRef to describe how the arguments are treated by the called procedure.

However, ByVal and ByRef can be used with Call only when calling a DLL procedure. On the Macintosh, ByVal and ByRef can be used with Call when making a call to a Macintosh code resource.

Remarks

You are not required to use the Call keyword when calling a procedure. However, if you use the Call keyword to call a procedure that requires arguments, argumentlist must be enclosed in parentheses. If you omit the Call keyword, you also must omit the parentheses around argumentlist. If you use either Call syntax to call any intrinsic or user-defined function, the function's return value is discarded.

In Visual Basic .NET, you can omit only the Call keyword leaving the parentheses in most cases, but in VBA, you must use both or none of the Call and parentheses.

To pass a whole array to a procedure, use the array name followed by empty parentheses.

Example

This example illustrates how the Call statement is used to transfer control to a Sub procedure, an intrinsic function, and a dynamic-link library (DLL) procedure. DLLs are not used on the Macintosh.

' Call a Sub procedure. 
Call PrintToDebugWindow("Hello World")     
' The above statement causes control to be passed to the following 
' Sub procedure. 
Sub PrintToDebugWindow(AnyString) 
    Debug.Print AnyString    ' Print to the Immediate window. 
End Sub 
 
' Call an intrinsic function. The return value of the function is 
' discarded. 
Call Shell(AppName, 1)    ' AppName contains the path of the  
        ' executable file. 
 
' Call a Microsoft Windows DLL procedure. The Declare statement must be  
' Private in a Class Module, but not in a standard Module. 
Private Declare Sub MessageBeep Lib "User" (ByVal N As Integer) 
Sub CallMyDll() 
    Call MessageBeep(0)    ' Call Windows DLL procedure. 
    MessageBeep 0    ' Call again without Call keyword. 
End Sub

See also

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