Datasheet

Chapter 1: A Quick Introduction to Programming

the YourName variable on the code line above. However, throughout this book you’ll often see the code

commented in a similar way. This is because the point of the code is to instruct the reader in how a par-

ticular aspect of VBScript programming works, and the best way to do that is to add comments to the

code directly. It removes ambiguity and keeps the code and comments together.

Also worth noting is that comments don’t have to be on a separate line. Comments can also follow the

code, like so:

Dim YourName ‘ initialize the variable

YourName = InputBox(“Hello! What is your name?”) ‘ ask for the user’s name

MsgBox “Hello “ & YourName & “! Pleased to meet you.” ‘ display a greeting

This works in theory but it isn’t as clear as keeping the comments on separate lines in the script.

Using Built-in VBS cript Functions

OK, back to the script. Take a look at line 3.

YourName = InputBox(“Hello! What is your name?”)

Here you are doing two things at once. First, you’re initializing the variable. You could do it directly,

like this:

YourName = “Fred”

However, the drawback with this is that you’re making the arbitrary decision that everyone is called

Fred , which is ideal for some applications but not for others. If you wanted to assign a fixed value to a

variable, such as a tax rate, this would be fine.

Dim TaxRate

TaxRate = 17.5

Because you want to do something that gives the user a choice, you should employ the use of a function,

called

InputBox . This function and all the others are discussed in later chapters, but for now all you

need to know is that

InputBox is used to display a message in a dialog box, and it waits for the user to

input text or click a button. The

InputBox generated is displayed in Figure 1-1 .

Figure 1-1

The clever bit is what happens to the text that the user types into the input box displayed — it is stored

in the variable

YourName .

c01.indd 5c01.indd 5 8/27/07 7:45:18 PM8/27/07 7:45:18 PM