I have an Excel workbook macro template (.xltm), with a number of VBA UDF used througout the sheets; nothing big or complex. The functions are declared Public and are saved in a module in the same workbook.
The template has been used for years, creating workbooks (.xlsm) in which the functions have always worked perfectly.
Now, opening the template to make some upgrades, I found ugly #NAME! errors in every cell containing one of my UDFs; if I try to insert a function in a cell, I do not find my functions listed with the Excel ones anymore.
The only thing changed in my Excel is the version, now 2019 64 bit; the template was created with the 2016 version (32 bit but worked with 64 bit also) and, I repeat, all things have always worked perfectly.
Maybe an Excel Guru can give me a hint to resolve this strange problem?
Edit an example as requested:
As I said, my functions are very simple and don't call any API code: for example, I have these two:
Const MinValue = 0.00001
Const NullValue = -999
Public Function IsZero(r As Range) As Boolean
'check the cell value, and returns True if the value is <= MinValue
If IsEmpty(r.Cells(1, 1)) Then
IsZero = True
ElseIf IsNumeric(r.Cells(1, 1)) Then
IsZero = (r.Cells(1, 1) <= Zero)
End If
End Function
Public Function Zero() As Double
' Simply returns the MinValue value.
Zero = MinValue
End Function
Excel sometimes has an issue 'remembering' the dependency chains for its calculations. A symptom of this is when a known functioning file has strange errors in cells that you know should have values.
A quick way to check if this is the case is to do a full rebuild of the dependency chain. From the keyboard this is CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F9. If you find this is happening on a regular basis, you can put the following line into your Workbook_Open event:
Application.CalculationFullRebuild
Further suggested readings are:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/excel/excel-recalculation
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.application.calculatefullrebuild
Related
I wrote a VBA script/macro which runs when a change is detected in a specific range (n x m) of cells. Then, it changes the values in another range (n x 1) based on what is detected in the first range.
This bit works perfectly ... but then comes the age old erased undo stack problem. Unfortunately, the ability for the user to undo their last ~10 or so actions is required.
My understanding is that the undo stack is only cleared when VBA directly edits something on the sheet - but it is preserved if the VBA is just running in the back without editing the sheet.
So my question is: Is it possible to use an in cell formula (something like below) to pull values from a VBA array?
'sample of in-cell function in cell A3
=function_to_get_value_from_vba_array(vba_array, index_of_desired_value)
Essentially, VBA would store a 1D array of strings with the values needed for the range. And by using a formula to grab the value from the array: I might be able to get around the issue of the undo stack being erased.
Thanks!
Solution
You need to do something like the following: your argument for the function should be calling the array bulding; I created one dummy function that creates some sample arrays to demonstrate it. In your case, likely you will need to store the changes on the worksheet event in a global array variable instead, and as you stated, do nothing on the worksheet (whenever a change happens, just redim or appended it on your global array as needed). However, a new problem may arise and that is when you close/reopen, or by some reason the array is lost, so you need to keep track of it, I would suggest to catch before close event and then convert the formulas to static values.
Function vba_array(TxtCase As String)
Dim ArrDummy(1) As Variant
Select Case TxtCase
Case "Txt": ArrDummy(0) = "Hi": ArrDummy(1) = "Hey"
Case "Long": ArrDummy(0) = 0: ArrDummy(1) = 1
Case "Boolean": ArrDummy(0) = True: ArrDummy(1) = False
End Select
vba_array = ArrDummy
End Function
In your calling function, do the following
Function get_value_from_vba_array(vba_array() As Variant, index_of_desired_value As Long) As Variant
'when parsing, even with option base 0 it starts at 1, so we need to add 1 up
get_value_from_vba_array = vba_array(index_of_desired_value + 1)
End Function
In your book, your formula should be something like:
=get_value_from_vba_array(vba_array("Txt"),1)
Demo
I did some actions before, so you are able to see that the "undo" works
I set out to write a simple function to determine the length of a string in points. Having googled around I decided to avoid the font metrics problem by having excel do the work for me.
Here is the code.
Option Explicit
Function txtWidthPts(MyText As String) As Integer
'A cell on a working worksheet has been named "WidthTest" for easy reference & to ensure data is not overwritten.
'set WidthTest word wrapping off so that strings placed in there aren't wrapped
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With [WidthTest]
.WrapText = False
.Value = MyText
'autofit WidthTest
.Columns.AutoFit
'get the width of the column
txtWidthPts = .Width
.ClearContents
End With
End Function
I tested the function by placing it in a cell on a working worksheet thus:
=txtWidthPts("Test123")
When I have this working I will be using it in code not as a worksheet function.
My problem is that the function does not throw an error and stops execution on the line:
.Value = MyText
I have placed the code and name into an empty workbook to ensure no interaction with other workbook contents / code.
I have searched extensively and tried various suggestions (DoEvents, Application.Update = False, etc, etc.) to no result.
I have cleared all breakpoints, closed and opened the workbook & restarted. I have tested with options set to Break on All Errors.
No result.
I suspect I am missing something obvious but it has me beat at the moment.
Any and all suggestions will be most welcome.
So, #YowE3K was right on the money. After fixing the error in the original code (Corrected code above) this runs fine from vba. I knew I was missing something obvious.
Curiosity sub-question: the function works as desired and indeed, as #YowE3K observed, it does not modify the Excel environment. However the result returned is dependent on it appearing to have modified the Excel environment. Seriously WTF. Just wanting to understand.
Thanks again YoWE3K.
I have a VBA function within a spreadsheet which operates on another spreadsheet that is opened in an earlier stage of my macro. The macro used to work fine but just recently has started causing a 1004 error ("Unable to get RoundDown property of the WorksheetFunction class") when it runs.
I believe I understand what the error would be caused by (a problem running RoundDown) but I cannot see why it is getting triggered in my macro and the odd part is that when I go into Debug mode and step through the code in the VBE the error does not recur (despite nothing obviously changing).
Does anyone have a similar experience of this sort of error occuring inconsistently and know what I could do to resolve it?
I'm reasonably VBA/Excel-savvy, but any suggestions on further steps to diagnose it would be appreciated. I am wondering if there is some issue with the opened spreadsheet not being ready but I cannot see how.
The code is here. The error occurs on the line marked with a comment.
Public Function GetDatesA(sWorkbookname As String, sSheetname As String, sCell As String) As Variant
Dim vDateList() As Variant
Dim currentCell As Range
Dim n As Long
Set currentCell = Workbooks(sWorkbookname).Worksheets(sSheetname).Range(sCell)
n = 0
Do
If Trim(currentCell.Value) = "" Then
Exit Do
Else
ReDim Preserve vDateList(0 To 1, 0 To n)
vDateList(0, n) = WorksheetFunction.RoundDown(currentCell.Value, 0) 'error occcurs on this line
vDateList(1, n) = currentCell.Column
'Debug.Print currentCell.Value
End If
Set currentCell = currentCell.Offset(0, 1)
n = n + 1
Loop While currentCell.Column < XL_LAST_COLUMN
GetDatesA = vDateList
End Function
Other details are:
Excel version: 2010
File being opened resides locally on my C: drive; my macro is in a spreadsheet on the network
File format for both files is .xls (i.e. Excel 2003) - I don't have the option of changing this
Windows 7 (not that I think it would be relevant)
Two points I've tried already are:
Substitute a different worksheet function (e.g. Min(currentCell)) and that also causes the same problem
Having the file open already seems to stop the problem - I wonder if there is some way that the workbook which is being opened (rather than my main workbook with the macro in it) is not enabled for macros and this is interfering. But even if this is the cause I'm not sure how to get around it!
Any ideas?
This error occurs often when any argument passed to the worksheet function is not of the correct type or simply doesn't make sense.
For example, I've had this problem when calling WorksheetFunction.Asin with an argument bigger than 1. In your case, I'd guess currentCell.Value is a non-numeric value or one not according to your region settings regarding numbers.
Yes, the error message is really misguiding.
I got the "Unable to get * property of WorksheetFunction Class" error using Transpose, MMult,MDterm, and MInverse functions.
I was able to get my code to run by putting "Option Base 1" in the Declarations (before the actual code) section of the particular Module in the Editer.
Excel assumes "Option Base 0" which will add an extra row and column of empty cells. This will cause the error to occur and isn't immediately obvious to see.
I have come accross this before, and for me it was becase the criteria range made no sense, as Andre said above.
See example formula below:
.Cells(11, i).Formula = Application.WorksheetFunction.CountIfs(Sheets("Sheet1").Range("AC8:C" & n), "S")
Have a look at the Range... it makes no sense. Amended the range from "AC8:C" to "AC8:AC" and it will work perfectly
I have created a VSTO plugin with my own RTD implementation that I am calling from my Excel sheets. To avoid having to use the full-fledged RTD syntax in the cells, I have created a UDF that hides that API from the sheet.
The RTD server I created can be enabled and disabled through a button in a custom Ribbon component.
The behavior I want to achieve is as follows:
If the server is disabled and a reference to my function is entered in a cell, I want the cell to display Disabled.
If the server is disabled, but the function had been entered in a cell when it was enabled (and the cell thus displays a value), I want the cell to keep displaying that value.
If the server is enabled, I want the cell to display Loading.
Sounds easy enough. Here is an example of the - non functional - code:
Public Function RetrieveData(id as Long)
Dim result as String
// This returns either 'Disabled' or 'Loading'
result = Application.Worksheet.Function.RTD("SERVERNAME", "", id)
RetrieveData = result
If(result = "Disabled") Then
// Obviously, this recurses (and fails), so that's not an option
If(Not IsEmpty(Application.Caller.Value2)) Then
// So does this
RetrieveData = Application.Caller.Value2
End If
End If
End Function
The function will be called in thousands of cells, so storing the 'original' values in another data structure would be a major overhead and I would like to avoid it. Also, the RTD server does not know the values, since it also does not keep a history of it, more or less for the same reason.
I was thinking that there might be some way to exit the function which would force it to not change the displayed value, but so far I have been unable to find anything like that.
EDIT:
Due to popular demand, some additional info on why I want to do all this:
As I said, the function will be called in thousands of cells and the RTD server needs to retrieve quite a bit of information. This can be quite hard on both network and CPU. To allow the user to decide for himself whether he wants this load on his machine, they can disable the updates from the server. In that case, they should still be able to calculate the sheets with the values currently in the fields, yet no updates are pushed into them. Once new data is required, the server can be enabled and the fields will be updated.
Again, since we are talking about quite a bit of data here, I would rather not store it somewhere in the sheet. Plus, the data should be usable even if the workbook is closed and loaded again.
Different tack=new answer.
A few things I've discovered the hard way, that you might find useful:
1.
In a UDF, returning the RTD call like this
' excel equivalent: =RTD("GeodesiX.RTD",,"status","Tokyo")
result = excel.WorksheetFunction.rtd( _
"GeodesiX.RTD", _
Nothing, _
"geocode", _
request, _
location)
behaves as if you'd inserted the commented function in the cell, and NOT the value returned by the RTD. In other words, "result" is an object of type "RTD-function-call" and not the RTD's answer. Conversely, doing this:
' excel equivalent: =RTD("GeodesiX.RTD",,"status","Tokyo")
result = excel.WorksheetFunction.rtd( _
"GeodesiX.RTD", _
Nothing, _
"geocode", _
request, _
location).ToDouble ' or ToString or whetever
returns the actual value, equivalent to typing "3.1418" in the cell. This is an important difference; in the first case the cell continues to participate in RTD feeding, in the second case it just gets a constant value. This might be a solution for you.
2.
MS VSTO makes it look as though writing an Office Addin is a piece of cake... until you actually try to build an industrial, distributable solution. Getting all the privileges and authorities right for a Setup is a nightmare, and it gets exponentially worse if you have the bright idea of supporting more than one version of Excel. I've been using Addin Express for some years. It hides all this MS nastiness and let's me focus on coding my addin. Their support is first-rate too, worth a look. (No, I am not affiliated or anything like that).
3.
Be aware that Excel can and will call Connect / RefreshData / RTD at any time, even when you're in the middle of something - there's some subtle multi-tasking going on behind the scenes. You'll need to decorate your code with the appropriate Synclock blocks to protect your data structures.
4.
When you receive data (presumably asynchronously on a separate thread) you absolutely MUST callback Excel on the thread on which you were intially called (by Excel). If you don't, it'll work fine for a while and then you'll start getting mysterious, unsolvable crashes and worse, orphan Excels in the background. Here's an example of the relevant code to do this:
Imports System.Threading
...
Private _Context As SynchronizationContext = Nothing
...
Sub New
_Context = SynchronizationContext.Current
If _Context Is Nothing Then
_Context = New SynchronizationContext ' try valiantly to continue
End If
...
Private Delegate Sub CallBackDelegate(ByVal GeodesicCompleted)
Private Sub GeodesicComplete(ByVal query As Query) _
Handles geodesic.Completed ' Called by asynchronous thread
Dim cbd As New CallBackDelegate(AddressOf GeodesicCompleted)
_Context.Post(Function() cbd.DynamicInvoke(query), Nothing)
End Sub
Private Sub GeodesicCompleted(ByVal query As Query)
SyncLock query
If query.Status = "OK" Then
Select Case query.Type
Case Geodesics.Query.QueryType.Directions
GeodesicCompletedTravel(query)
Case Geodesics.Query.QueryType.Geocode
GeodesicCompletedGeocode(query)
End Select
End If
' If it's not resolved, it stays "queued",
' so as never to enter the queue again in this session
query.Queued = Not query.Resolved
End SyncLock
For Each topic As AddinExpress.RTD.ADXRTDTopic In query.Topics
AddinExpress.RTD.ADXRTDServerModule.CurrentInstance.UpdateTopic(topic)
Next
End Sub
5.
I've done something apparently akin to what you're asking in this addin. There, I asynchronously fetch geocode data from Google and serve it up with an RTD shadowed by a UDF. As the call to GoogleMaps is very expensive, I tried 101 ways and several month's of evenings to keep the value in the cell, like what you're attempting, without success. I haven't timed anything, but my gut feeling is that a call to Excel like "Application.Caller.Value" is an order of magnitude slower than a dictionary lookup.
In the end I created a cache component which saves and re-loads values already obtained from a very-hidden spreadsheet which I create on the fly in Workbook OnSave. The data is stored in a Dictionary(of string, myQuery), where each myQuery holds all the relevant info.
It works well, fulfils the requirement for working offline and even for 20'000+ formulas it appears instantaneous.
HTH.
Edit: Out of curiosity, I tested my hunch that calling Excel is much more expensive than doing a dictionary lookup. It turns out that not only was the hunch correct, but frighteningly so.
Public Sub TimeTest()
Dim sw As New Stopwatch
Dim row As Integer
Dim val As Object
Dim sheet As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Worksheet
Dim dict As New Dictionary(Of Integer, Integer)
Const iterations As Integer = 100000
Const elements As Integer = 10000
For i = 1 To elements + 1
dict.Add(i, i)
Next
sheet = _ExcelWorkbook.ActiveSheet
sw.Reset()
sw.Start()
For i As Integer = 1 To iterations
row = 1 + Rnd() * elements
Next
sw.Stop()
Debug.WriteLine("Empty loop " & (sw.ElapsedMilliseconds * 1000) / iterations & " uS")
sw.Reset()
sw.Start()
For i As Integer = 1 To iterations
row = 1 + Rnd() * elements
val = sheet.Cells(row, 1).value
Next
sw.Stop()
Debug.WriteLine("Get cell value " & (sw.ElapsedMilliseconds * 1000) / iterations & " uS")
sw.Reset()
sw.Start()
For i As Integer = 1 To iterations
row = 1 + Rnd() * elements
val = dict(row)
Next
sw.Stop()
Debug.WriteLine("Get dict value " & (sw.ElapsedMilliseconds * 1000) / iterations & " uS")
End Sub
Results:
Empty loop 0.07 uS
Get cell value 899.77 uS
Get dict value 0.15 uS
Looking up a value in a 10'000 element Dictionary(Of Integer, Integer) is over 11'000 times faster than fetching a cell value from Excel.
Q.E.D.
Maybe... Try making your UDF wrapper function non-volatile, that way it won't get called unless one of its arguments changes.
This might be a problem when you enable the server, you'll have to trick Excel into calling your UDF again, it depends on what you're trying to do.
Perhaps explain the complete function you're trying to implement?
You could try Application.Caller.Text This has the drawback of returning the formatted value from the rendering layer as text, but seems to avoid the circular reference problem.Note: I have not tested this hack under all possible circumstances ...
I am having trouble getting VBA's Evaluate() function to only execute once; it seems to always run twice. For instance, consider the trivial example below. If we run the RunEval() subroutine, it will call the EvalTest() function twice. This can be seen by the two different random numbers that get printed in the immediate window. The behavior would be the same if we were calling another subroutine with Evaluate instead of a function. Can someone explain how I can get Evaluate to execute the target function once instead of twice? Thank you.
Sub RunEval()
Evaluate "EvalTest()"
End Sub
Public Function EvalTest()
Debug.Print Rnd()
End Function
This bug only seems to happen with UDFs, not with built-in functions.
You can bypass it by adding an expression:
Sub RunEval()
ActiveSheet.Evaluate "0+EvalTest()"
End Sub
But there are also a number of other limitations with Evaluate, documented here
http://www.decisionmodels.com/calcsecretsh.htm
I don't know of a way to stop it, but you can at least recognize when it is happening most of the time. That could be useful if your computation is time consuming or has side effects that you don't want to have happen twice and you want to short circuit it.
(EDIT: Charles Williams actually has an answer to your specific quesion. My answer could still be useful when you don't know what data type you might be getting back, or when you expect to get something like an array or a range.)
If you use the Application.Caller property within a routine called as a result of a call to Application.Evaluate, you'll see that one of the calls appears to come from the upper left cell of of the actual range the Evaluate call is made from, and one from cell $A$1 of the sheet that range is on. If you call Application.Evaluate from the immediate window, like you would call your example Sub, one call appears to come from the upper left cell of the currently selected range and one from cell $A$1 of the current worksheet. I'm pretty sure it's the first call that's the $A$1 in both cases. (I'd test that if it matters.)
However, only one value will ever be returned from Application.Evaluate. I'm pretty sure it's the one from the second eval. (I'd test that too.)
Obviously, this won't work with calls made from the actual cell $A$1.
(As for me, I would love to know why the double evaluation happens. I would also love to know why the evaluator is exposed at all. Anyone?)
EDIT: I asked on StackOverflow here: Why is Excel's 'Evaluate' method a general expression evaluator?
I hope this helps, although it doesn't directly answer your question.
I did a quick search and found that others have reported similar behavior and other odd bugs with Application.Evaluate (see KB823604 and this). This is probably not high on Microsoft's list to fix since it has been seen at least since Excel 2002. That knowledge base article gives a workaround that may work in your case too - put the expression to evaluate in a worksheet and then get the value from that, like this:
Sub RunEval()
Dim d As Double
Range("A1").Formula = "=EvalTest()"
d = Range("A1").Value
Range("A1").Clear
Debug.Print d
End Sub
Public Function EvalTest() As Double
Dim d As Double
d = Rnd()
Debug.Print d
EvalTest = d + 1
End Function
I modified your example to also return the random value from the function. This prints the value a second time but with the one added so the second print comes from the first subroutine. You could write a support routine to do this for any expression.
I face the same problem, after investigation i found the function called twice because i have drop down list and the value used in a user defined function.
working around by the code bellow, put the code in ThisWorkbook
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
'set the calculation to manual to stop calculation when dropdownlist updeated and again calculate for the UDF
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End Sub
Private Sub Workbook_SheetChange(ByVal Sh As Object, _
ByVal Source As Range)
'calculte only when the sheet changed
Calculate
End Sub
It looks like Application.Evaluate evaluates always twice, while ActiveSheet.Evaluate evaluates once if it is an expression.
When the object is not specified Evaluate is equivalent to Application.Evaluate.
Typing [expression] is equivalent to Application.Evaluate("expression").
So the solution is to add ActiveSheet and to make that an expression by adding zero:
ActiveSheet.Evaluate("EvalTest+0")
After seeing there is no proper way to work around this problem, I solved it by the following:
Dim RunEval as boolean
Sub RunEval()
RunEval = True
Evaluate "EvalTest()"
End Sub
Public Function EvalTest()
if RunEval = true then
Debug.Print Rnd()
RunEval = False
end if
End Function
problem solved everyone.