What does mean := in VBA ?

[baskarpr]

Hi.
Can anyone tell the purpose/meaning of ":=" which is used in VBA ? It sounds like a smiley, lol.

Example :

ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Copy after:=ActiveWorkbook.Sheets ("Sheet1")

Thanks in advance....

[SammyB]

In VBA, := allows you to specify named parameters. In your example, the Copy method has two optional parameters, Before and After, so you can also write your code as
ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1").Copy (,ActiveWorkbook.Sheets ("Sheet1"))

So, using the := with named parameters allows you to see clearly which parameters were passed, plus you can specify them in any order. You can use this in your own code, see example below. In this silly example, NamedParametersTest(, , , , , , , , , , 22) and NamedParametersTest(k:=22) give the same result. HTH --Sam

Sub test()
    MsgBox NamedParametersTest(, , , , , , , , , , 22)
    MsgBox NamedParametersTest(k:=22)
End Sub
Function NamedParametersTest(Optional a, Optional b, Optional c, _
                        Optional d, Optional e, Optional f, Optional g, _
                        Optional h, Optional i, Optional j, Optional k, _
                        Optional l, Optional m, Optional n, Optional p)
    If Not IsMissing(a) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "a=" & a
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(b) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "b=" & b
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(c) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "c=" & c
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(d) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "d=" & d
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(e) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "e=" & e
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(f) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "f=" & f
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(g) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "g=" & g
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(h) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "h=" & h
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(i) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "i=" & i
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(j) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "j=" & j
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(k) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "k=" & k
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(l) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "l=" & l
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(m) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "m=" & m
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(n) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "n=" & n
    ElseIf Not IsMissing(p) Then
        NamedParametersTest = "p=" & p
    End If
End Function