Is there a way to write an equality test for a VBA class with private members without exposing knowledge of the existence of those private members?

Question

I do a fair amount of Excel VBA programming, but not a lot of it is object-oriented. Here is something that comes up every now and then that bugs me, and I\'m wondering if t

Answer 1

I would write the class like this

Private mdhidden1_ As Double
Private mdhidden2_ As Double

Public Property Get hidden1_() As Double

    hidden1_ = mdhidden1_

End Property

Public Property Get hidden2_() As Double

    hidden2_ = mdhidden2_

End Property

Private Sub Class_Initialize()

    'some method of setting variables private to the class
    mdhidden1_ = 1
    mdhidden2_ = 2

End Sub

Public Property Get IsEquivalent(clsCompare As C) As Boolean

    IsEquivalent = Me.hidden1_ = clsCompare.hidden1_ And Me.hidden2_ = clsCompare.hidden2_

End Property

If you're forced to expose knowledge of the member anyway, you may as well make it a read-only property (Get, but no Let). Then you can make the IsEquivalent boolean property inside the class.