Question: In a SQL Select statement:Is it possible to define ORDER BY (random) Answer: The answer to your question is “no”. The ORDER BY clause must refer to specific fields

Question: How would I drop an index from a table using SQL? Answer: Here is the syntax for the drop index command: DROP INDEX [owner.]table_name.index_name[, [owner.]table_name.index_name…]Ex. DROP INDEX authors.au_id_ind

Question: In FPW 2.6 I often get a ‘variable not found’ message when the read statement executes. This usually happens only the first time the screen is used in the

Question: I wanted to find the copy files wait screen (where it shows a file jumping from one folder to another). How can I do this and what is it

Referencing a static local variable in a procedure is 2-3 times slower than a regular local, dynamic variable; if you want to really speed up your procedures, convert all static

Visual Basic doesn’t provide you with a means for creating a Missing value, a feature that in some cases would prove useful in order to simplify the syntax of calls

If your forms contain Label controls used to display data from a database, set their UseMnemonic property to False. In fact, if you leave this property to its default value

When using the ParamArray keyword within a procedure, always remember that when the procedure is invoked from elsewhere in the program one of the argument might be omitted, and you

When working on an updated version of a COM component, you should always enforce Binary Compatibility in the Component tab of the Project Properties dialog box. When enforcing binary compatibility

Private Declare Function ImageList_ReplaceIcon Lib “COMCTL32” (ByVal hImageList _ As Long, ByVal i As Long, ByVal hIcon As Long) As Long’ Load a set of images from a disk file

‘ Save all the images in an ImageList control to a disk file’ Images can be later loaded in the same ImageList control using the’ LoadImageList routine” Note 1: if

It seems that the only way to count the number of 1’s or 0’s in a binary value is creating a loop that iterates on all the 16 or 32

‘ returns the last occurrence of a substring’ The syntax is similar to InStrFunction InstrLast(ByVal Start As Long, Source As String, search As String, _ Optional CompareMethod As VbCompareMethod =

There are a lot of risks involved in using End in VB programs: your databases might not be correctly closed, your objects are not correctly terminated, etc. You should always

Under some circumstances, an ActiveX DLL can pass private objects to its client application, for example a reference to a control that belongs to a form in the DLL. While

You should always modify a vertical scrollbar’s width and a horizontal scrollbar’s height to conform to the display resolution. You can learn the suggested size (in pixels) using the GetSystemMetrics

When testing a component in the IDE, always perform a full compilation. This ensures that VB checks the syntax of all the code in the component, which in turn guarantees

‘ Return True if a directory exists’ (the directory name can also include a trailing backslash)Function DirExists(DirName As String) As Boolean On Error GoTo ErrorHandler ‘ test the directory attribute

‘ Return True if a file existsFunction FileExists(FileName As String) As Boolean On Error GoTo ErrorHandler ‘ get the attributes and ensure that it isn’t a directory FileExists = (GetAttr(FileName)

Const LF_FACESIZE = 32Private Type LOGFONT lfHeight As Long lfWidth As Long lfEscapement As Long lfOrientation As Long lfWeight As Long lfItalic As Byte lfUnderline As Byte lfStrikeOut As Byte

The call ‘select * from ‘ becomes costly when tables have a lot of fields. Because every data field would be required to be sent across the network (or processed)

Several developers have complained that in order to use Visual Studio 6.0’s online help, they must keep the MSDN Library CD in their CD-ROM drive, or copy all 680 MB

Redirecting based on the time of day is fairly easy to do. One thing to remember, however, is that because client-side JavaScript runs in the user’s browser, the time your

The Standard does not specify the memory layout of base class subobjects in a derived class. In practice, however, all C++ compilers use the same convention: The base class subobject

If you use the VB development environment in MDI mode (the default) and you like your code windows maximized, you might have noticed that, unlike VB5, VB6 doesn’t remember this

Question: For the same global function, what’s the difference between placing it in a global module and in a class module?Are there any performance issues involved? If so, which way

Question: Is there a way to round numbers to the nearest multiple of n, where n could be any number? For example, if n = 5, it would round 8

Question: I have a VB app which formats a large text file and then prints it using MS Word. I need to include what amounts to a thick underscore in

Question: I have an ActiveX dll into which I can pass an existing ImageList containing a set of images. This works fine and means that I only have to maintain