Re: operation on module arguments

Brooks Moses wrote:

The thing is that what "real A" means is "allocate a certain bit of memory for storing a real variable, and let the variable name 'A' refer to that bit of memory."

You're asking for it to potentially mean, instead, "allocate a certain bit of memory for storing a real variable, and let any attempts to update the variable name 'A' invoke a set of procedures as well as referring to this bit of memory." (But it would only mean this if something was defined in relation to it.)

Other languages/object models do have this feature. With COM objects, all objects have "properties", which are always accessed through getter and setter routines. VB (and extensions to C++) make this work like a variable on the client side.

e.g.
(class module Foo)

Private m_bar As Long

Public Property Let Bar(ByVal rhs As Long)
m_bar = rhs
' or you could do other stuff here...
End Property

Public Property Get Bar() As Long
Bar = m_bar
' or you could do other stuff here...
End Property

'It's not mandatory to have both getter and setter, you could omit one
'to have a read-only or write-only property, although a function will
'generally be more appropriate for the latter.

(client code)
Dim myFoo As New Foo
Dim baz As Long

myFoo.Bar = 5
baz = MyFoo.Bar
.

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