Strongly typed dictionary collection in VBA

In this post, I will show you how to build a strongly type dictionary and how to loop through its elements with a For Each Loop.

The Generic Dictionary Object can be found in the "Microsoft Scripting Runtime" library.
This can be used to store any type of variables or object. However, it is usually very useful to wrap it up so that you can create your own strongly typed dictionary.
As you will see from the code below, a very simple way to loop through the collection of elements in a dictionary is to loop through its keys. The variable key must be variant type.

For Each key In emps.Keys
   Set emp = emps(key)
   Debug.Print emp.Name
Next

The first class is a strongly typed dictionary of Employee object, called Employees.
A usual to make the .Item property to be the default property you need to add the

Attribute Item.VB_UserMmeId = 0

just below the definition of the Get Item property

Option Explicit

Private Const cMODULE_NAME As String = "Employees"Private mDic As Dictionary


Private Sub Class_Initialize()
  Set mDic = New Dictionary
End Sub
Private Sub Class_Terminate()
  Set mDic = Nothing
End Sub

Public Sub Add(key As Variant, Item As Employee)
  
    Call mDic.Add(key, Item)
  
End Sub

Public Property Get Item(key As Variant) As Employee
   'Attribute Item.VB_UserMemId = 0
   'This Attribute makes Item the default property
   'In VBA, uncomment the first line. Export, Remove and import the file again. To make it work

   Set Item = mDic.Item(key)
       
End Property

Public Function count() As Long
   count = mDic.count
End Function

Public Function Exists(key As Variant) As Boolean
  Exists = mDic.Exists(key)
End Function

Public Function items() As Variant
 items = mDic.items
End Function

Public Function Remove(key As Variant)
  mDic.Remove (key)
End Function

Public Function RemoveAll()
  mDic.RemoveAll
End Function

Public Function Keys() As Variant
  Keys = mDic.Keys
End Function

This is the the Employee Class

Option Explicit

Private Const cMODULE_NAME As String = "Employee"
Private mIdentifier As Long
Private mName As String
Private mAge As Long

Public Property Get Identifier() As Long
  Identifier = mIdentifier
End Property

Public Property Let Identifier(value As Long)
    mIdentifier = value
End Property

Public Property Get Name() As String
   Name = mName
End Property

Public Property Let Name(value As String)
   mName = value
End Property

Public Property Get Age() As Long
  Age = mAge
End Property

Public Property Let Age(value As Long)
  mAge = value
End Property

This is the Sub to test the Code

Sub TestCollection()

Dim emp As Employee
Dim emps As Employees
Dim key As VariantSet emps = New Employees
Set emp = New Employee
emp.Identifier = 1
emp.Name = "Mario"
emp.Age = 34
Call emps.Add(emp.Identifier, emp)

Set emp = New Employee
emp.Identifier = 2
emp.Name = "Gino"
emp.Age = 12
Call emps.Add(emp.Identifier, emp)

For Each key In emps.Keys
   Set emp = emps(key)
   Debug.Print emp.Name
NextEnd Sub

How to get the scripting dictionary enumerator to use in the for each loop in visual basic

A common practice is writing VB 6.0 or VBA code to wrap the Collection object in order to create strongly type Collections.

An alternative to the collection object is the scripting.Dictionary object which you can find adding a reference to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime.

The Dictionary Object is an Hash Table, so it is preferred to the Collection object when you need to access elements in the collection by key.
In addtion it has few properties and methods that the Collection object is lacking.

MS scripting run time and MS Regular Expression in VB 6.0 or VBA

Hi,
Two nice library that help you speed up your VB 6.0 / VBA development time are the
1) Microsoft Scripting Run Time library

   The two most interestinjg objects here are the
   Dictionary object which is an hashtable. Its only major draw back  is that it does not expose the   NewEnum function, which means that while you can wrap it up to create a strongly type dictionary object, you cannot create a NewEnum method to loop through the collection using the For Each statement

   FileSystemObject which let you easily access to files and folders

2) Microsoft VBScript Regural Expression 5.5.

    This is a really nice library to use to test a string using regular expression.
    This is an example on how it works: