Hints+2009+Semester+1

 =Handy Hints Semester 1, 2009=

Note: If your Hint is more than a paragraph long, please put it on a separate page.
If you are creating a new page use the following naming convention eg 2009 S1 Smith Mary HH 1(if you studied in 2009 semester 1 and your name is Mary Smith, Handy Hing 1)


 * Cardillo Anthony **

=**Dougherty, Ben**= Hint 1

Instead of using the different sort algorythm's you can now use the Sort method which will sort an array for you. If you have parrallel arrays the first array passed to the method will be sorted and it will keep your pairing of data in tact.

Example: code format="vbnet" 'declare arrays and variables Dim students As String = {"Ben", "James", "Amy", "Ryan", "mark"} Dim ages As String = {"20", "40", "10", "14", "60"} Dim msg As String = ""

'loop through array creating our msg var For i As Integer = 0 To students.GetUpperBound(0) msg &= students(i) & " " & ages(i) & vbNewLine Next

'display results MessageBox.Show(msg, "Results", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information)

'sort array by students names Array.Sort(students, ages)

'reset msg var msg = ""

'loop through again re-creating the msg var For i As Integer = 0 To students.GetUpperBound(0) msg &= students(i) & " " & ages(i) & vbNewLine Next

'redisplay our sorted results MessageBox.Show(msg, "Results", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information) code Hint 2

Ok so are you all sick of typing out all 4 parameters in a message box yet? When doing the sets I use an Ok and Information icon every time, so why not make a smaller procedure as shown below.

code format="vbnet" Sub mb(ByVal text as string, ByVal title as string)

MessageBox.Show(text, title, MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information)

End Sub code If you wanted to be even more lazy you could have a generic title as well so then all you would have to do would be mb("message Here")

You could also create a Sub for an error message box with the generic title "Error".

code format="vbnet" Sub mbe(ByVal text As String)

MessageBox.Show(text, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error)

End Sub code

Hint 3

If you have ever built a form with say 10 textboxes on and when the form is submitted you want to validate all 10 textboxes, well naturally you would think that you have to go through each one like so

code format="vbnet" If txtTextBox1.Text = "" then

End If

If txtTextBox1.Text = "" then

End If

If txtTextBox1.Text = "" then

End If

code

etc.......

But this leads to messy and tedious code so below is an example on how to loop through controls and validate them on the way.

code format="vbnet" For Each ctrl As Control In Me.Controls If ctrl.Text = "" Then MessageBox.Show("Invalid input for " & ctrl.Name) Exit Sub End If       Next code

Ok so this validates all the controls on the form which may not be what we are after so how about checking the type of the control inside the loop?

code format="vbnet" For Each ctrl As Control In Me.Controls If TypeOf ctrl Is TextBox Then

If ctrl.Text = "" Then MessageBox.Show("Invalid input for " & ctrl.Name) Exit Sub End If           End If        Next code

So now we know how to check different types of controls but say i have 6 Textfields that are string and then another 4 that are phone numbers or numeric values? Well if name the controls correctly i could check against this also like so.

code format="vbnet" For Each ctrl As Control In Me.Controls If TypeOf ctrl Is TextBox Then 'check if it should be string If ctrl.Name.StartsWith("txtString") Then 'check if its valid value If ctrl.Text = "" Then 'if its blank exit sub MessageBox.Show("Invalid Input") Exit Sub End If                   'check if it should be numeric ElseIf ctrl.Name.StartsWith("txtInt") Then 'validate that it is numeric If Not IsNumeric(ctrl.Text) Then 'if not show error and exit sub MessageBox.Show("Please enter Numeric Values for Phone Numbers") Exit Sub End If               End If

End If       Next code You can see that for controls where we want string values entering, we name them txtString and for controls where we want numeric values we name them txtInt. This is only a simple example and you could take it further by looking at the rest of the control name say txtStringAddress which would allow you to give more friendly error messages specific to the correct field.

PS this is only some code i made up and if anyone else has their own validation snippets please share them.

Ben


 * Eldridge Jordan **

 Handy Hint #1 Reversing a string The following is a function which allows you to reverse the contents of a string:
 * Dennis Elliott - (Click for Control Dictionary / Conference / IT Topic Speech) **
 * Note* This must be placed in a module.

code format="vbnet" Function ReverseString(ByVal msg As String) As String

'Declared Variables Here Dim Chars As Char = msg.ToCharArray 'This array is where the characters 'from the original string will be inserted and reversed

Dim result As String = "" 'Initialised result as 0 to prevent any errors in the for loop

Array.Reverse(Chars) ' This reverse the characters in the array For i = 0 To Chars.GetUpperBound(0) result &= Chars(i) 'This places the characters in the array back into a string form Next

'Declared the variable to be returned to be equal to the string "result" ReverseString = result End Function

code

Handy Hint #2 Searching for a string within a string. The following code uses the function already within visual basic 2008 called InStr, Which is passed two strings and the function searches for the second string within the first one.

code format="vbnet" Dim msg As String Dim search As String Dim index As Integer 'Here I declared the string that will be searched. You can use an inputbox here if you wish msg = "Optional. Specifies the starting position for each search." msg &= " The search begins at the first character position by default. This parameter " msg &= "is required if compare is specified"

'Here you ask the user what they want to search for. search = InputBox("Enter the string would like to search for.", "Search", "default")

'Here the function InStr is passed. searching within variable "msg" for variable "search" index = InStr(msg, search) 'The value returned will be an integer for the index

If index = 0 Then 'if InStr returned 0, it mean the string was not found MessageBox.Show("String not found.") Else 'Any other result will be the index where the string found started (first found) MessageBox.Show("The string was found. it start from character index " & index & ".") End If

code


 * Huege De Serville Leroy **


 * Iwanyk Jean **


 * Johnson Darren **


 * Kerton Sean **

Meharry Thomas Click name to link to my page <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> For Loop Yes or No
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Osti Tomislav **

For i = 1 To 20 ' this loop goes 20 times Result = MessageBox.Show( <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(163,21,21); font-family: 'Courier New';">"Do you watch or record anything from channel two?", <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(163,21,21); font-family: 'Courier New';">"Channel two" , MessageBoxButtons.YesNo, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation) If Result = MsgBoxResult.Yes Then two += 1 End If <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This for loop is used for when you get asked a question you get a yes or no question, if you press no then it will not accept the answer and skip the question but if you press yes then it will add it to the tally. So it is basically used for yes and no questions. It can also be altered to instead give the results for cancel or exit as well.

Lower Case password = LCase(InputBox( <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(163,21,21); font-family: 'Courier New';">"What is the password?" )) 'This asks for the password, it doesn't matter if it is lower or upper caps While name <> password name = LCase(InputBox( <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(163,21,21); line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Courier New';">"Enter the code", vbNewLine & <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(163,21,21); line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Courier New';">"Enter the Code." )) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">This is a method so that if you are entering in a word that it will accept it if it is in lower caps or in upper caps. It can be used for many methods so that it can be used for if someone is typing in name that it will still accept the word.

Excel Formulas is the powerpoint Compount interest is an example of using compound interests in excel Excel Example is a mathematical equation using excel Excel Examples1 is many examples using excel Simple interest is an example of using Simple interests in excel

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Passmore Samuel **

code To get any numbers contained in a string you can use the Val Function. The Val function uses the following syntax: Val(String) The following code gets any numbers contained in String, and puts it into a textbox Dim sNum As String sNum = "Year: 2000, date: 12" ' Text1 will contain 200012 Text1.Text = Val(sNum)
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Reed Karen **

code <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">

=Steele Andrew=

= = <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> **<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Stevenson Richard ** <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Thompson Daniel **

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Tweedie Terryn **

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 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Vosper Samuel **

Click my name to browse to my submissions page **
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">York Brock