Inspired by the answer to this question I created a factory for empty arrays. It usually works, but sometimes it doesn't. The array created with the technique described in that post, after being ReDim-ed and a few values assigned to its elements, appears broken from some points of view and appears correct from other points of view.
For example in my real code I see all the correct values in its elements in the Locals window, I see <Variable uses an Automation type not supported in Visual Basic> on the Watch window, I see the correct values on all the elements on some functions and I see only a few correct values on other functions. For example if F1() creates the array and passes it to F2(), F1 sees all the values, but F2 sees only a few of them, while the others appear to be empty (string in this case).
I was not able to reproduce the same exact same behavior in a small snippet, but I reproduced something similar in the code below. Here the bad behavior is the opposite of what I have described above: it works on the code and it doesn't on the Locals window.
I think that a fix for this problem will also fix the real application.
The output of the Immediate window is correct:
The output of the Watch window fails:
The output of the Locals window is wrong:
Here is the code:
Private Declare Sub GetMem2 Lib "msvbvm60" (src As Any, dest As Any)
Sub Test()
Dim S() As String, I As Integer
S = NewArrayString
ReDim Preserve S(9)
For I = 0 To 9
S(I) = String(I + 1, "x")
Next I
For I = 0 To 9
Debug.Print I; S(I)
Next I
Stop
End Sub
Function NewArrayString() As String()
Dim V As Variant, NewTypeCode As Integer
V = Array()
NewTypeCode = vbArray Or vbString
GetMem2 NewTypeCode, V
NewArrayString = V
End Function
