Binaryworld - Simplify your code with Inc and Dec functions ... [ VB -> Language ]

Unlike other languages - such as C and Delphi - VB lacks of the capability to increment and decrement a variable. Adding this feature, in the form of reusable Function routines, is simple:

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Function Inc(Value As Variant, Optional Increment As Variant = 1) As Variant
  Value = Value + Increment
  Inc = Value
End Function

Function Dec(Value As Variant, Optional Decrement As Variant = 1) As Variant
  Value = Value - Decrement
  Dec = Value
End Function

The above routines declare the argument as Variant, so you can use them with any numeric data type, as in:

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Dim x As Long, y As Single
' increment a Long value by one
Inc x
' increment a floating point variable by 0.1
Inc y, 0.1

You may argue whether using the Inc/Dec routines is going to make your code more or less readable. However, these functions prove to be more useful when they appear inside expressions:

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' evaluate the sum of the squares of the first 100 integer numbers

' (of course, you can do this also with a For-Next loop,
' but this is only an example)

Dim N As Long, Sum As Long

Do While N <= 100
' increment N, square it, and add to the Sum variable
Inc Sum, Inc(N) ^ 2
Loop

A final note: the Inc/Dec routines are slow, at least compared with inline addition and subtraction operations. For this reason you should never use them inside time-critical loops.