1. Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting
Edition
Vitaliy Ganzha, 2012

2. History
 VBScript began as part of the Microsoft Windows Script
Technologies, launched in 1996
 in the fall of 1996, Internet Explorer is made with features that
include VBScript.
 In version 5.0, the functionality of VBScript was increased with
new features such as: regular expressions; classes; the With
statement;[the Eval, Execute, and ExecuteGlobal functions to
evaluate and execute script commands built during the
execution of another script; a function-pointer system via
GetRef, and Distributed COM (DCOM) support.
 Not longer under development, MS recommends to use
PowerShell

3. In general
 Programming language
 Very limited OOP support
 Dynamically typed
 Interpreted
 But yet very powerful (for small tasks) because of
MS’ component model
 Must be executed inside a host (WSH, Internet
Explorer, IIS, MS Script Control)

4. Data types
 Empty, Null, Nothing
 Boolean
 Byte/Integer/Long
 Currency
 Single/Double
 Date/Time
 String
 Object
 Error
 Descriptions:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9e7a57cf%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

5. Variables
 Dim Top, Bottom, Left, Right
 Naming restrictions:
– Must begin with an alphabetic character.
– Cannot contain an embedded period.
– Must not exceed 255 characters.
– Must be unique in the scope in which it is declared.
 Scope and Lifetime of variables
– Procedural
– Class
– All-Script
 Set value: CutoffDate = #06/18/2008 01:05:09#
 Constants marked with Const:
– Const MyString = "This is my string.“
–
Const MyAge = 49

6. Operators
 Arithmetic: ^,*,/,,Mod,+,-,&
 Comparison: =, <>, <, >, <=, >=, Is
 Logical: Not, And, Or, Xor, Eqv, Imp
 () overrides operator precedence

7. Statements
 If...Then…Else
If myDate < Now Then myDate = Now
 Select Case
 Loops:
– Do…Loop
– While…Wend
– For…Next
– For Each…Next:

8. Sub and Function procedures
 Sub can’t return result
 Function can return value
 Can have zero or more arguments
 To call: use call+() or do not use ()
 ByRef, ByVal

9. What’s next?
 Collections: Dictionaries
 XML (MSXML)
 COM usage: Internet Explorer, MS Office,
FileSystemObject, etc., etc.
 Classes
 Error Handling