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Excel VBA Set. “Set”, is a keyword used in VBA programming to assign a reference to an object or cell range which is going to remain fix throughout the program or code in Excel. VBA Set basically helps us in avoiding repetitive input of range we need to select while executing the code.
Dim is short for Dimension and is used in VBA and VB6 to declare local variables. Set on the other hand, has nothing to do with variable declarations. The Set keyword is used to assign an object variable to a new object. Hope that clarifies the difference for you.
In VBA, declaring variables is optional, but you can't declare AND set the variable at the same time. We've added a line that assigns the value of a variable. In VBA, just append “. Value”, an equals sign, and the value you want to assign (in quotation marks).
set is used to assign a reference to an object. The C equivalent would be
int i;
int* ref_i;
i = 4; // Assigning a value (in VBA: i = 4)
ref_i = &i; //assigning a reference (in VBA: set ref_i = i)
In your case, it will produce an error. :-)
Set assigns an object reference. For all other assignments the (implicit, optional, and little-used) Let statement is correct:
Set object = New SomeObject
Set object = FunctionReturningAnObjectRef(SomeArgument)
Let i = 0
Let i = FunctionReturningAValue(SomeArgument)
' or, more commonly '
i = 0
i = FunctionReturningAValue(SomeArgument)
From MSDN:
Set Keyword: In VBA, the Set keyword is necessary to distinguish between assignment of an object and assignment of the default property of the object. Since default properties are not supported in Visual Basic .NET, the Set keyword is not needed and is no longer supported.
Set is used for setting object references, as opposed to assigning a value.
Off the top of my head, Set is used to assign COM objects to variables. By doing a Set I suspect that under the hood it's doing an AddRef() call on the object to manage it's lifetime.
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