Assign 3 Guide - Coding Step 2: Getting User Input

Assignment 3 Guide

Implementation Phase - Coding Step 2: Getting User Input

These notes guide you through getting user input for your assignment 3 program.

Introduction

Declare your Input Variables

Get the Inputs and Store Them in Variables

Check your Code

Message Box Method

Breakpoint Method

Introduction

Objectives

This guide will help you to: -

· declare your input variables in VB

· get user input

· check your code

If you need to you should print out the following two assignment documents.

Assignment Scenario

Assignment 3: Implementation

Declare your Input Variables

When a user runs your program and types information such as lawn width, height etc. you will need to keep the values typed in so you can use them in the calculations later on. You can keep the values by storing them in variables.

So your next task is to create a little bit of programming code by declaring all your input variables.

In Assignment 2 part a you were asked to decide on formats and names for your variables.

Here is a reminder...

Input Data Data Type VB Data Type Variable Name Min/Max Explanation

Rectangular Lawn Length (m)
floating point number

single

rectLawnLength
The number must be larger than 0. Max number of characters will be 4. A lawn length measurement may have a decimal part. E.g. 4.3m.

Rectangular Lawn Width (m)
floating point number

single

rectLawnWidth
The number must be larger than 0. Max number of characters will be 4. A lawn width measurement may have a decimal part. E.g. 3.3m.

etc...

I started a table listing all of the inputs I expected from the user, such as Lawn Length. Then I specified the data type as a single and a variable name of rectLawnLength.

If you completed this task, you will be able to use the variable names in the VB coding form to declare your variables.

Your Task

Here are step by step instructions on how to declare your variables. You are going to declare all your variables inside a separate coding sheet called a module.

Module Coding Windows

If you have not added a module to your project already, then on the VB menu, click Project, then Add Module. A new white coding window should appear. You need to save the separate module just like you save a form. Here is a picture of my VB explorer window showing two forms (input and output) and my module.

If you double-click the module you should get a white coding window. In the coding window, declare your variables like so...

You need to carry on declaring your other input variables for your two fields. You should end up with about 7 input variables for both the lawns and the fields.

When you have declared your variables, click the save button to save your work.

Get the Inputs and Store Them in Variables

Your next task is to get the inputs entered by the user in your input form and assign those values to variables.

Now, thinking about what happens when a user runs your program, they will -

run your program and see your input form - we cannot get any input values yet because the user has not entered anything

the user should then enter the input values

then they will click a command button indicating they want your program to display the outputs.

So, it is when the user clicks the command button that your program needs to get the input values so it can calculate the outputs.

So, in your program, go to your form1 and double-click your command button. You should see these lines of code similar to:-

Option Explicit

Private Sub cmdSubmit_Click()

End Sub

Note: The part that says cmdSubmit is the name of my command button. Your command button will probably have a different name. Perhaps you called it cmdGo or cmdCalculate.

To get the user inputs from the textboxes we have to write code similar to this:-

Option Explicit

Private Sub cmdSubmit_Click()

     rectLawnLength = txtRectLawnLength.Text

     rectLawnWidth = txtRectLawnWidth.Text

End Sub

The second line puts the value from the textbox called txtRectLawnLength into the variable rectLawnLength.

The third line puts the value from the textbox called txtRectLawnWidth into the variable rectLawnWidth.

In other words, both variables will now have whatever values the user typed into the text boxes.

Example:
When the user clicks my submit button, the variables will be get their values from the textboxes.

rectLawnLength will be 3

rectLawnWidth will be 4.4

Now carry on assigning values to the rest of your input variables. Just keep adding lines of code like this..

Option Explicit

Private Sub cmdSubmit_Click()

     rectLawnLength = txtRectLawnLength.Text

     rectLawnWidth = txtRectLawnWidth.Text

     circLawnRadius = txtCircLawnRadius.Text

     etc....

End Sub

Remember, there should be about seven inputs. Also, you must make sure your variable names exactly match the names you used when you declared them.

When you have finished, click the save button to save your work.

Now click the run button just to see if VB accepts your code. It will complain if you have made a syntax error, (such as a spelling error, or have misnamed a variable.)

~~Activity~~

Activity A

At the top of all your forms you should make sure you have the word..

Option Explicit

This is an instruction to VB to check your code to see if you have declared all your variables. VB looks through your code and if you have say spelt one of your variables wrong it will tell you.

To see what I mean, take one of your variables like rectLawnLength and spell it wrong, i.e. rectLawnLen

Now run your program.

VB will probably give an error message when you click the submit button because that's when it finds the mispelt variable.

Check your Code

Now you are getting user input, it would be useful to make sure your input variables are getting the correct values. There are a couple of ways of checking this. The first way is to use a temporary message box. The second way is to step through your code.

Message Box Method

Suppose I want to check my rectLawnLength variable is getting the correct value from the input box. I could use a message box to check temporarily. When I am satisfied that all is well I can then delete message box line of code.

At the end of the cmdSubmit sub routine I am going to type in a line to bring up a message box.

Private Sub cmdSubmit_Click()

     rectLawnLength = txtRectLawnLength.Text

     rectLawnWidth = txtRectLawnWidth.Text

     circLawnRadius = txtCircLawnRadius.Text

     etc....

    MsgBox "The value of rectLawnLength is " & rectLawnLength

End Sub

Now when I click the Submit button, a message box should appear...

I could check other variables if I wish. All I have to do is change the msgbox line of code a little bit. If I want to check the value of the rectLawnWidth variable I would change it to...

    MsgBox "The value of rectLawnWidth is " & rectLawnWidth

I could use a msgbox to check the values for each one of my variables in turn.

~~Activity~~

Activity B

Use a message box to check the values of each one of your variables in turn.

Check your variables that store that values from the rectangular lawn textboxes, i.e.



Check your variables that store that values from the circular lawn textbox, i.e.



Check your variables that store that values from the L-shape field textboxes.

Check your variables that store that values from the field with pond textboxes.

Breakpoint Method

There is another way of checking your code. You can step through it line by line using a breakpoint. You can add a breakpoint to any line of code by clicking in the margin of your code...

When a line of code has a breakpoint on it, the line appears red and a red circle appears in the margin. It is easy to remove the breakpoint, you just click on the red circle and it goes away.

When a line has a breakpoint, this means that when VB is running your program and it reaches the line it will pause. This is useful because then you can step slowly through your code one line at a time and see what values controls and variables have. Here is what happens when VB reaches my breakpoint when I run the program...

The breakpoint line goes yellow and VB waits for me to do something. I want to go to the next line and see what value rectLawnLength has; to do this I press the F8 key.

VB goes to the next line - it highlights the line yellow. If I hover my mouse over the txtRectLawnLength part of the code, VB shows me what value is in that textbox. Since I had typed a number 3 into that textbox this is what it shows me in the little tooltip...

Now if I hover my mouse over the rectLawnLength part of the code, VB shows me what value the variable has...

The variable has a value of 0. This is because VB has not executed the line yet. As soon as it does execute the line, rectLawnLength will have the same value as txtRectLawnLength. I can execute the line by pressing F8. VB executes the line, then goes to the next line and pauses. Now if I hover my mouse over the rectLawnLength, we can see it's value has changed to 3.

~~Activity~~

Activity C

Place a breakpoint on your submit buttons sub routine. Then run you program and press F8 to step through your code. Remember to hover your mouse over variables to see what values they have.

You can stop running your program at any time by clicking the button