Declaration Contexts and Default Access Levels 

This topic describes which Visual Basic types can be declared within which other types, and what their access levels default to if not specified.

Declaration Context Levels

The declaration context of a programming element is the region of code in which it is declared. This is often another programming element, which is then called the containing element.

The levels for declaration contexts are the following:

• Namespace level — within a source file or namespace but not within a class, structure, module, or interface

• Module level — within a class, structure, module, or interface but not within a procedure or block

• Procedure level — within a procedure or block (such as If or For)

The following table shows the default access levels for various declared programming elements, depending on their declaration contexts.

Declared element	Namespace level	Module level	Procedure level
Variable (Dim Statement (Visual Basic))	Not allowed	Private (Public in Structure, not allowed in Interface)	Public
Constant (Const Statement (Visual Basic))	Not allowed	Private (Public in Structure, not allowed in Interface)	Public
Enumeration (Enum Statement (Visual Basic))	Friend	Public	Not allowed
Class (Class Statement (Visual Basic))	Friend	Public	Not allowed
Structure (Structure Statement)	Friend	Public	Not allowed
Module (Module Statement)	Friend	Not allowed	Not allowed
Interface (Interface Statement (Visual Basic))	Friend	Public	Not allowed
Procedure (Function Statement (Visual Basic), Sub Statement (Visual Basic))	Not allowed	Public	Not allowed
External reference (Declare Statement)	Not allowed	Public (not allowed in Interface)	Not allowed
Operator (Operator Statement)	Not allowed	Public (not allowed in Interface or Module)	Not allowed
Property (Property Statement)	Not allowed	Public	Not allowed
Default property (Default (Visual Basic))	Not allowed	Public (not allowed in Module)	Not allowed
Event (Event Statement)	Not allowed	Public	Not allowed
Delegate (Delegate Statement)	Friend	Public	Not allowed

For more information, see Access Levels in Visual Basic.

See Also

Reference

Friend (Visual Basic)
Private (Visual Basic)
Public (Visual Basic)