Word Document Properties

Part II: Learning the Ropes 
09_046500 ch04.qxp 12/5/06 5:54 PM Page 102

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‘ Reset the date.
Date = MyDate
‘ Display the Day, Month, and Year.
MsgBox “The current date is (DD/MM/YYYY): “ + _
CStr(Day(MyDate)) + “/” + _
CStr(Month(MyDate)) + “/” + _
CStr(Year(MyDate)), _
vbOKCancel, _
“Actual Date”
End Sub
The code begins by creating 
MyDate
and using it to store the current date
information. The next step is to change the date by using 
Date
as a property.
As when you’re using 
Time
, you can modify 
Date
by using any valid date
format. You must have sufficient security to perform this task. If the program
fails, ask your network administrator whether you have time- and date-setting
privileges. The code creates a message box to demonstrate that the date change
actually occurred. You can verify this change by looking at the clock area of
the Taskbar Notification area.
After you click OK, the code continues by resetting the date to its original
value. Again, the code displays a message box to show that the change has
actually occurred. Notice how the code relies on the 
Day
, 
Month
, and 
Year
functions to display both message boxes.
Working with variant data
The earlier “Understanding the numeric types” section demonstrates one 
use of the 
Variant
data type: A 
Variant
can hold any data type, including
objects. The earlier “Adding strings together with + or &” section shows
another use of the 
Variant
data type: 
Variant
variables can hold nothing
(a null value) or a string. A program can use a 
Variant
when VBA doesn’t
provide direct support for a data type (such as the 
Decimal
type); when the
type of information that the program user will provide is unknown when you
write the program; or when the native data type doesn’t support a certain
kind of storage, such as a null string. In short, a 
Variant
is the universal
data type for VBA.
VBA does track the data type of the 
Variant
variables that you create. In
Chapter 6, I demonstrate how you can see this information while debugging
the program. The data type names begin with 
Variant
and end with the
native data type. Thus, a 
Date
stored in a 
Variant
would appear as a
VariantDate
data type.
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