[arrays] VBA Public Array : how to?

So today's problem is getting me mad because that should be easy and i can not find the answer :

How to declare a public array in VBA ? I'm using an array with the letters A, B, C,... because i'm working with Excel cells, and i don't want to declare it in every function i create, right ? I've tried to look on the web first and i read that you have to declare it in a different module, so that's what i've done :

Public colHeader As String
colHeader = Array("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "L")

But Visual Basic doesn't like it...

So what shall i do ?

Thank's a lot :)

Edit : the problem is more about asigning values to the array than to declare it

This question is related to arrays vba

The answer is


Try this:

Dim colHeader(12)
colHeader = ("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "L")

Unfortunately the code found online was VB.NET not VBA.


Option Explicit
     Public myarray (1 To 10)
     Public Count As Integer
     myarray(1) = "A"
     myarray(2) = "B"
     myarray(3) = "C"
     myarray(4) = "D"
     myarray(5) = "E"
     myarray(6) = "F"
     myarray(7) = "G"
     myarray(8) = "H"
     myarray(9) = "I"
     myarray(10) = "J"
Private Function unwrapArray()
     For Count = 1 to UBound(myarray)
       MsgBox "Letters of the Alphabet : " & myarray(Count)
     Next 
End Function

This worked for me, seems to work as global :

Dim savePos(2 To 8) As Integer

And can call it from every sub, for example getting first element :

MsgBox (savePos(2))

You are using the wrong type. The Array(...) function returns a Variant, not a String.

Thus, in the Declaration section of your module (it does not need to be a different module!), you define

Public colHeader As Variant

and somewhere at the beginning of your program code (for example, in the Workbook_Open event) you initialize it with

colHeader = Array("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "L")

Another (simple) alternative would be to create a function that returns the array, e.g. something like

Public Function GetHeaders() As Variant
    GetHeaders = Array("A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F", "G", "H", "I", "J", "K", "L")
End Function

This has the advantage that you do not need to initialize the global variable and the drawback that the array is created again on every function call.


Well, basically what I found is that you can declare the array, but when you set it vba shows you an error.

So I put an special sub to declare global variables and arrays, something like:

Global example(10) As Variant

Sub set_values()

example(1) = 1
example(2) = 1
example(3) = 1
example(4) = 1
example(5) = 1
example(6) = 1
example(7) = 1
example(8) = 1
example(9) = 1
example(10) = 1

End Sub

And whenever I want to use the array, I call the sub first, just in case

call set_values

Msgbox example(5)

Perhaps is not the most correct way, but I hope it works for you