Visual Basic help

[Beastal]

Hello everyone.

I am trying to write a program in Visual Basic (the program is the game of blackjack, to be precise), and am having trouble finding a way to code the program so that once a card is removed from the deck, it will not reappear until the next shuffle. I downloaded a tutorial that suggested using collections to do this… I have only just started learning Visual Basic and have had no exposure with collections until now.

The tutorial I downloaded gave the following example of using collections to randomize a list of items, and then selecting them, making sure there are no repeats. In this example, there are 6 names, instead of a deck of cards being used.

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim colNames As Collection
Dim colJumbled As Collection
Dim i As Integer

Set colNames = New Collection
Set colJumbled = New Collection

colNames.Add “James”
colNames.Add “John”
colNames.Add “Karin”
colNames.Add “Natasha”
colNames.Add “Susan”
colNames.Add “Sven”

'Continue until there are no more
’ entries left in the original list.
Do While colNames.Count > 0
'Randomly select a name from colNames.
i = Rand(1, colNames.Count)

The program halts once it gets to that last line of code, and says:

Compile error:

Sub or function not defined

… whilst highlingting “Rand” as the culprit.

What’s the problem?

I am still only in the beginner’s learning phase of Visual Basic, so please keep any responses as lay as possible ;).

Thank you.

[Carcosa]

*Originally posted by Beastal *
**:
… whilst highlingting “Rand” as the culprit.
**

Change “Rand” to “Rnd”.

[Beastal]

Tried that already…

[Armilla]

The “Rand” function must be defined elsewhere in the program - there’s no such function in VB. It looks like the example is incomplete.

Replacing “Rand” with “Rnd” won’t do it. Rnd only takes one (optional) parameter, not two.

[Armilla]

Try adding this function:

Private Function Rand(lLBound As Long, lUBound As Long) As Long
Rand = Int((lUBound + 1 - lLBound) * Rnd) + lLBound
End Function

[Carcosa]

*Originally posted by Armilla *
**The “Rand” function must be defined elsewhere in the program - there’s no such function in VB. It looks like the example is incomplete.

Replacing “Rand” with “Rnd” won’t do it. Rnd only takes one (optional) parameter, not two. **

Good point.

Ok. What Armilla said. Try the function here:

[URL=http://www.vbexplorer.com/VBExplorer/random/random_numbers_1.asp]

[Beastal]

Ok, inserting Armilla’s code got it past that line, but the program stops again at…

i = Rand(1, colNames.Count)

'Copy the name into colJumbled.
colJumbled.Add colNames(i)

'Remove the name from the original list
'  so that it won't be selected again.
colNames.Remove i

Loop

'Print the jumbled list onto the form.
Me.Cls
For i = 1 To colJumbled.Count
Me.Print colJumbled(i)
Next

'Invite the first two in the jumbled list.
MsgBox "Invite " & colJumbled(1) & " and " & colJumbled(2)

It stops again at “Me.Cls”. (I have printed the rest of the code).

What it’s trying to do is display the new “jumbled” list of names on the form. “Me” normally means the active form, right? And Cls means clear?

Either way, it’s highlighting Me.Cls and saying, once again:

Compile error:

Sub or function not defined

Some more assistance here would be very appriciated.

[Beastal]

And also appreciated.

[Armilla]

Is the code actually running in a Form, or is it somewhere else (like a class or module)?

The Me object is only available to code that is defined in a Form, not elsewhere (well…it’s available in classes, which Forms sorta are, but let’s not muddy the issue). “Me.Cls” should be valid for any code running in a Form.