Program Structure and Code Conventions (Visual Basic)
This section introduces the typical Visual Basic program structure, provides a simple Visual Basic program, "Hello, World", and discusses Visual Basic code conventions. Code conventions are suggestions that focus not on a program's logic but on its physical structure and appearance. Following them makes your code easier to read, understand, and maintain. Code conventions can include, among others:
Standardized formats for labeling and commenting code.
Guidelines for spacing, formatting, and indenting code.
Naming conventions for objects, variables, and procedures.
The following topics present a set of programming guidelines for Visual Basic programs, along with examples of good usage.
In This Section
Structure of a Visual Basic Program
Provides an overview of the elements that make up a Visual Basic program.Visual Basic Version of Hello, World
Provides a step-by-step recreation of the classic program "Hello World," redone in Visual Basic.Main Procedure in Visual Basic
Discusses the procedure that serves as the starting point and overall control for your application.References and the Imports Statement (Visual Basic)
Discusses how to reference objects in other assemblies.Namespaces in Visual Basic
Describes how namespaces organize objects within assemblies.Visual Basic Naming Conventions
Includes general guidelines for naming procedures, constants, variables, arguments, and objects.Visual Basic Coding Conventions
Reviews the guidelines used in developing the samples in this documentation.Conditional Compilation in Visual Basic
Describes how to compile particular blocks of code selectively while directing the compiler to ignore others.How to: Break and Combine Statements in Code (Visual Basic)
Shows how to divide long statements into multiple lines and combine short statements on one line.How to: Collapse and Hide Sections of Code (Visual Basic)
Shows how to collapse and hide sections of code in the Visual Basic code editor.How to: Label Statements (Visual Basic)
Shows how to mark a line of code to identify it for use with statements such as On Error Goto.Special Characters in Code (Visual Basic)
Shows how and where to use non-numeric and non-alphabetic characters.Comments in Code (Visual Basic)
Discusses how to add descriptive comments to your code.Keywords as Element Names in Code (Visual Basic)
Describes how to use brackets ([]) to delimit variable names that are also Visual Basic keywords.Me, My, MyBase, and MyClass in Visual Basic
Describes various ways to refer to elements of a Visual Basic program.Visual Basic Limitations
Discusses the removal of known coding limits within Visual Basic.
Related Sections
Typographic and Code Conventions (Visual Basic)
Provides standard coding conventions for Visual Basic.Editing Text, Code, and Markup
Provides an overview of the Visual Studio Code Editor.