vb.netsyntaxcolon-equals

What does a := (colon equals) in VB.NET do?

Possible Duplicate:
What is the use of the := syntax?

I've tried hunting down the MDSN documentation for := in VB.NET as well as scoured Google only to be linked to a dead MSDN page... What would the purpose of := be?

Solution

  • It strongly names arguments, allowing you to call a method with arguments in an order other than that specified in the method definition.

    For example:

    sub foo (byval x As Long, byval y As Long)
   debug.print (String.Format("{0}, {1}", x.ToString, y.ToString))
end Function

    can be called with the order of the arguments reversed by using their names:

    foo (y:=999, x:=111)

    prints:

    111, 999

    This is especially useful when you have a long list of optional arguments, you only want to specify a few of them, and those that you want to specify are not the first ones.