Array from Range in Excel VBA

Question

Well I've been struggling with the little bit of code and can't seem to get around it ... I'm trying to get an array from a range of cells, the array however is showing up to be 1 element wide.
Well here's the code:

Dim item As Variant
MsgBox Range("D19:H19").Count    
item = Range("D19:H19").Value
MsgBox LBound(item) & " " & UBound(item)

as per my understanding item should contain a 2D array... however I'm getting the following result 1st MsgBox prints 5 2nd MsgBox prints 1 1

What's going wrong?

Answer 1

That's correct as is. Even if you select an array of cells, you still have the option to select one single cell out of the array (and step for example with tab through the items of this array)

.Value

only gets you the content of the currently single-selected cell.

if you want the enumeration of the array, you may call the .Cells()-method of the Range-object

Assuming that D19 until H19 contain "a" through "e" respectively, calling

Range("D19:H19").Cells(2)

returns you "b". Note that this is a one-based array and can be 2-dimensional. Cells() takes at most 2 parameters to specify the inner offset from the selection's origin.

hope that clarifies... regards

Answer 2

Your item should contain a 2-D array as expected. If you stick a breakpoint in your code and look at the little "Locals" window in the VBA editor, you should see that. Your calls to LBound and UBound are getting the bounds in the first dimension. If you call Lbound(item,2) and UBound(item,2), you should get 1 and 5 as you expect.

EDIT: That is, once you've made the assignment, item would look like something you could have declared as such:

Dim item(1 to 1, 1 to 5)

One of the banes of VBA programming is that arrays can have arbitrary lower bounds. So all of your code needs to be aware of that.

Answer 3

I can't comment or edit yet, so if someone can incorporate this to jtolle's post, this can be deleted.

The problem is in LBound and UBound

jtolle was correct about the LBound and UBound.

LBound(item, 2)

UBound(item, 2)

However, item must not be dimmed as an array (you'll get an error).

I think this is what you want

Dim item As Variant
MsgBox Range("D19:H19").Count
item = Range("D19:H19").Value

MsgBox LBound(item, 2) & " " & UBound(item, 2)

For i = LBound(item, 2) To UBound(item, 2)
  MsgBox item(1, i)
Next

Answer 4

if you want a 1D array, to join it for an IN clause, for example, you should transpose your range. I've found you have to transpose twice for a row, once for a column of data like this:

Dim rngRow As Range, rngColumn As Range

Set rngRow = Sheets(1).Range("A1", "Z1")
Set rngColumn = Sheets(1).Range("A1", "A20")

Dim arrRowValues, arrColValues
arrRowValues = WorksheetFunction.Transpose(WorksheetFunction.Transpose(rngRow))
arrColValues = WorksheetFunction.Transpose(rngColumn)

Dim numList As String, stringList As String
numList = Join(arrRowValues, ",")
stringList = "'" & Join(arrColValues, "','") & "'"

worth a play.

Answer 5

Try this:

Dim item As Variant
MsgBox Range("D19:H19").Count
item = Application.Transpose(Range("D19:H19").Value)
MsgBox LBound(item) & " " & UBound(item)