Declare a 0-Length String Array in VBA - Impossible?

Question

Is it really not possible to declare a 0-length array in VBA? If I try this:

Dim lStringArr(-1) As String

I get a compile error saying rang

Answer 1

As noted in the comments, you can do this "natively" by calling Split on a vbNullString, as documented here:

expression - Required. String expression containing substrings and delimiters. If expression is a zero-length string(""), Split returns an empty array, that is, an array with no elements and no data.

If you need a more general solution (i.e., other data types, you can call the SafeArrayRedim function in oleaut32.dll directly and request that it re-dimensions the passed array to 0 elements. You do have to jump through a couple of hoops to get the base address of the array (this is due to a quirk of the VarPtr function).

In the module declarations section:

'Headers
Private Type SafeBound
    cElements As Long
    lLbound As Long
End Type

Private Const VT_BY_REF = &H4000&
Private Const PVDATA_OFFSET = 8

Private Declare PtrSafe Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias _
    "RtlMoveMemory" (ByRef Destination As Any, ByRef Source As Any, _
    ByVal length As Long)

Private Declare Sub SafeArrayRedim Lib "oleaut32" (ByVal psa As LongPtr, _
    ByRef rgsabound As SafeBound)

---

The procedure - pass it an initialized array (any type) and it will remove all elements from it:

Private Sub EmptyArray(ByRef vbArray As Variant)
    Dim vtype As Integer
    CopyMemory vtype, vbArray, LenB(vtype)
    Dim lp As LongPtr
    CopyMemory lp, ByVal VarPtr(vbArray) + PVDATA_OFFSET, LenB(lp)
    If Not (vtype And VT_BY_REF) Then
        CopyMemory lp, ByVal lp, LenB(lp)
        Dim bound As SafeBound
        SafeArrayRedim lp, bound
    End If
End Sub

---

Sample usage:

Private Sub Testing()
    Dim test() As Long
    ReDim test(0)
    EmptyArray test
    Debug.Print LBound(test)    '0
    Debug.Print UBound(test)    '-1
End Sub