Excel VBA - Indirectly reference a sheet by it's CodeName - excel

Question

Is there a way to indirectly reference a sheet by it's CodeName without looping through every sheet to test it's CodeName? For example,
Method 1: The following code does not work (would be ideal if it did though):
Dim ws As Worksheet
Set ws = "mySheet" & myVar
Method 2: But this works (if you hardcode the CodeName in):
Dim ws As Worksheet
Set ws = mySheetExample
Method 3: And this works (for a dynamic approach):
Dim ws As Worksheet
For Each sh In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
If sh.CodeName = "mySheet" & myVar Then
'do something
End If
Next
which is a really long winded way of doing things, which brings me to my question, why does the first method not work?

Answer 1

It will not work that way because you are trying to assign a string to a worksheet object. Select Case is the way to go. OR
Try this
Set ws = Sheets(ThisWorkbook.VBProject.VBComponents("mySheet" & myVar).Properties("Name").Value)
A more elaborate example
Option Explicit
Sub Sample()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim myVar As Long
Dim shName As String
myVar = 1
shName = "Sheet" & myVar
Set ws = Sheets(ThisWorkbook.VBProject.VBComponents(shName).Properties("Name").Value)
Debug.Print ws.CodeName
End Sub
For this to work, enable "Trust access to the VBA project"
Start Microsoft Excel.
Open a workbook.
Click File and then Options.
In the navigation pane, select Trust Center.
Click Trust Center Settings....
In the navigation pane, select Macro Settings.
Ensure that Trust access to the VBA project object model is checked.
Click OK.
If you are not aware what Trust access to the VBA project object model is then you may read about it in Enable or disable macros in Office files

Answer 2

You're missing the point of the code name property.
The idea is that it gives you a compile-time, project-global programmatic identifier you can use whenever you need to refer to a particular specific worksheet in ThisWorkbook (the workbook hosting your VBA code).
Method 1 doesn't work because the expression "mySheet" & myVar evaluates to a String value, and you're trying to Set-assign that string into a Worksheet object reference. VBA can't read your mind here, it sees a string on the right-hand side, a Worksheet variable on the left-hand side, and has no idea what that means.
Method2 is making a locally-scoped copy of an identifier that is already project-global: it's completely redundant and uselessly confusing indirection, don't do that.
Method3 would be better implemented as a function:
Public Function GetSheetByCodeName(ByVal value As String) As Worksheet
Dim sheet As Worksheet
For Each sheet In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
If sheet.CodeName = value Then
Set GetSheetByCodeName = sheet
Exit Function
End If
Next
Err.Raise 9 '"subscript out of range", specified name was not found.
End Function
Still, taking something that's compile-time validated, and making it runtime-validated, feels backwards. It's a long-winded way of doing things, because you're supposed to be consuming that identifier as an.. identifier:
Sheet1.Range("SomeRange").Value = 42
Worksheets that exist in ThisWorkbook at compile-time, shouldn't need any kind of complicated logic to extract - they're right there.