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December 10,
1998
Back to Microsoft Office Articles and Sample Apps

VBA Code Optimisation

By Ken Getz

This article originally appeared in the conference

proceedings for the Microsoft Office and VBA Solutions
Conference and Exposition, held in London, England,
July 12-15, 1998, and is reprinted with permission of
Informant Communications Group, Inc. Please visit
their Web site at
http://www.informant.com/mod/index.asp

Download the sample code discussed in this article.

Why Optimise?
As with any large Windows development environment, you can
make choices when writing your own Access applications that will
affect the performance of your application. How you create your
queries, how you organise your tables, and how you write VBA
code can all affect your application's speed. This paper provides
some suggestions about what you can do to make your Access
applications work as well as possible, focusing on the choices you
make when writing VBA code.

Top

Tuning Your Application's

Performance
The faster your application and each of its components perform,
the more usable it will be. No user (or developer) likes a slow
application. Getting extra performance sometimes requires you to
make trade-offs and may affect other aspects of the application's
usability, stability, and maintainability. Thus, it's important to keep
the following issues in mind as you tune your applications for
speed.

Some of the aspects of performance tuning:

l Hardware and memory

l Access configuration

l Database design

l Query design

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l Forms design

l Reports design

l Single-user versus multi-user, file-server versus client/server

application design

l VBA coding

To create applications that perform well, you will have to address

many, if not all, of these areas. In this paper, I'll present methods
you can use to test your hypotheses to solve any particular VBA
question, and a series of suggestions about steps to take (and not
to take) to make your VBA code work as well as possible.
Top

Speeding Up VBA: Testing Hypotheses

As in any programming language, VBA has many ways to
accomplish the same task. Because you're dealing not only with a
language but also with the interface and the underlying data, all
tied together in the programming environment, the choices are
often even more complicated than with other, more standard
languages. The following sections propose a series of selected
optimisations, some more potent than others, and some that are
based on incorrect assumptions (that is, they don't help at all and
perhaps even hurt). Probably no single application will be able to
use each of these, but you can add the ones that help to your
"bag of tricks" as you program in Access. You'll also find a method
for timing those optimisations so you can create your own test
cases.
Top

Creating a Stopwatch
Although you could use the VBA Timer function to calculate the
time a specific process requires, it's not the wisest choice.
Because it measures time in seconds since midnight in a single-
precision floating-point value, it's not terribly accurate. Even
though you'll most likely be timing intervals larger than a single
second, you'll want a bit more accuracy than the Timer function
can provide. The Windows API provides the timeGetTime function
(aliased as timeGetTime in the sample code), which returns the
number of milliseconds that have passed since Windows was
started.

Note: Not that it matters for testing purposes, but

Timer "rolls over" every 24 hours. timeGetTime keeps on
ticking for up to 49 days before it resets the returned
tick count to 0. Most likely, if you're timing something
that runs for 49 days, you're not interested in
milliseconds, but that's what you get. One more
benefit, you'll see later: the act of calling timeGetTime
is significantly faster than calling Timer.

To test each of the proposed optimisations, you need some

mechanism for starting and stopping the clock. The subroutine
StartTimer stores the current return value from timeGetTime into a

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StartTimer stores the current return value from timeGetTime into a

global variable, lngStartTime. You must call this subroutine directly
before any code you want to have timed. When you're done with
the critical section of code, call the function EndTimer, which
returns the difference between the current time and the time when
you called StartTimer, or the elapsed time. Figure 1 shows the
declarations and code for the timer functions.

Private Declare Function timeGetTime Lib "winmm.dll" () As Long

Dim lngStartTime As Long
Sub StartTimer()
lngStartTime = timeGetTime()
End Sub
Function EndTimer()
EndTimer = timeGetTime() - lngStartTime
End Function

Figure 1: Code to perform timings, using the timeGetTime API function.

Note: Most Windows programmers have used the

GetTickCount function in previous versions of Windows
to perform their high-resolution timing. Although that
function returned its result in milliseconds, it was never
more accurate than the clock timer in your PC, which
measures time in increments of 1/18 second. The
timeGetTime function, introduced in Windows 3.0 as
part of the multimedia extensions, uses a different
hardware timer and can actually measure time with
millisecond accuracy. Before Windows 95 and Windows
NT, you couldn't have been sure your users had the
correct multimedia .DLLs on their system. With the new
operating systems, you're assured that all users will
have the necessary DLLs, and you can use
timeGetTime without worry.

Top

Getting Reasonable Results

You will find that running any given test only once doesn't provide
reliable results. There are just too many external forces in play
when you're running under Windows. To get a reasonable idea of
the benefit of a given optimisation test, you need to run the test
code many times within the given test case and then run the test
case many times, averaging the results. For simplicity, each of the
tests in this paper takes as its only parameter a Long value
indicating the number of times you want to run the test. Each
function loops the specified number of times with the clock running
and provides the elapsed time as the return value of the function.

If you want to add your own tests to this test mechanism, you
must follow those constraints when planning your tests. In
addition, for each test case, you need two versions: a "slow"
version (labelled Test1a in this example) and a "fast" version
(labelled Test1b in this example). Once you've provided the two
functions, you can call the function RunTests, which, in turn, calls
both functions the specified number of times. RunTests averages
the elapsed times the functions return and reports on the
comparative speed of the two functions. Figure 2 shows the
RunTests function.

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Function RunTests(strFunc1 As String, strFunc2 As String, _

lngReptFunc As Variant, lngRepeatOp As Variant) As Variant
' Run two tests cases, comparing their relative timings and return
' a string showing the results of those timings. '
' Modified From Access 97 Developer's Handbook
' by Litwin, Getz, and Gilbert (Sybex)
' Copyright 1997. All rights reserved.
' The assumption is that strFunc1 will be slower than strFunc2. ' In:
' strFunc1: the name of the "slower" function
' strFunc2: the name of the "faster" function
' lngReptFunc: the number of times to call each function
' lngRepeatOp: the number of times to loop, internally to each function
' Out: ' Return Value: A string representing the outcome of the tests
Dim varI As Variant Dim varResults1 As Variant
Dim varResults2 As Variant Dim varDiff As Variant
Dim intAmount As Integer Dim strResult As String
Dim varTemp As Variant For varI = 0 To lngReptFunc - 1
Call SetStatus("Running " & strFunc1 & "() Pass " & varI)
varResults1 = varResults1 + Eval(strFunc1 & _
"(" & lngRepeatOp & ")") Next varI

For varI = 0 To lngReptFunc - 1

Call SetStatus("Running " & strFunc2 & "() Pass " & varI)
varResults2 = varResults2 + Eval(strFunc2 _
& "(" & lngRepeatOp & ")") Next varI
varResults1 = varResults1 / lngReptFunc
varResults2 = varResults2 / lngReptFunc
varDiff = varResults1 - varResults2
If Abs(varDiff) < 0.005 Then varDiff = 0
' Better check for division by 0 and
' overflow, both of which can occur from
' a very small value in varResults1. On Error GoTo RunTestsError
intAmount = Int((varResults1 - varResults2) / _ varResults2 * 100)
Debug.Print strFunc1 & " vs. " & strFunc2 & ":"; _
varResults1, varResults2, intAmount & "%" RunTests = intAmount
RunTestsExit: ' Clear the status line. Call SetStatus Exit Function
RunTestsError: MsgBox Error, vbExclamation, "RunTests()" RunTests = 0
Resume RunTestsExitEnd Function

Figure 2: The RunTests function.

Notice that RunTests takes four parameters, as shown in Figure 3.

Parameter Description Datatype

strFunc1 Name of the "slow" String

function to test expression

strFunc2 Name of the "fast" String

function to test expression

VarReptFunc Number of times to Variant

repeat the function call

VarReptOp Number of times to Variant

repeat the operation in
the function

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Figure 3: RunTests parameters.

RunTests returns an Integer indicating the comparison between

the first and second functions, measured as a percentage:

intAmount = Int((varResults1 - varResults2) / _

varResults2 * 100)

In addition, RunTests prints a string to the Debug window (so it's

useful without an interface, for informal testing), like this:

Test1a vs. Test1b: 3.7 0.7 428%

This output shows the milliseconds elapsed while running each

function, followed by the percentage improvement in the faster
function.

For example, to call RunTests to test functions Test1a and Test1b,

running each function 10 times to average the results and having
each function loop internally 10,000 times, call RunTests like this:

strResult = RunTests("Test1a", "Test1b", 10, 10000)

Top

Using the Eval Function

RunTests uses the Eval function to execute each of the two tests.
The Eval function takes a parameter to string code you want
Access to execute. If you intend to use Eval to execute functions,
you should be aware of the various limitations involved in using this
technique.

Access performs no error checking on the string you send to Eval.

If it works, great. If not, you get, at best, a "User Defined Error"
message. At worst, you crash (and lose data). You would be wise
to check the string you're about to send to Eval by using MsgBox
or Debug.Print to display the string before its execution. This way
you can verify that the string to be executed is, in fact, laid out
exactly as you think it ought to be.

Scoping rules are always an issue. Eval can't interpret any local
variables, nor can it handle private functions. You can remember
the rules this way: any object you want to send to Eval must also
work in macros. Just as VBA variables aren't available in macros,
they aren't available once Eval gets hold of the string to be
executed. RunTests uses local variables, but they become part of
the string passed to Eval and are passed as values, not as variable
names.

The string you pass to Eval must represent a function that returns
a value of some sort. That value will be the return value from the
call to Eval. Neither subroutines nor expressions are allowed.
Top

Twenty-One Possible Optimisations

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In this section I present 21 possible optimisations, in no particular

order. Some will actually make a difference in your applications;
others are interesting ideas I thought might make a difference (and
used to, in Access 2 or Access 95) but no longer actually do in
Access 97. I've left in the "losers," mostly to indicate that some
perceived optimisations just don't help. To test each hypothesis,
I've created two similar versions of a simple function. The sample
database includes the full source for both versions of each test so
you can try them out yourself.

Note: The effectiveness of each of the optimisations

that follow depends on many factors, including the
actual code in use at the time, the relative speed of
your hard disk versus the processor in your computer,
and other programs currently using Windows' memory
and resources. Using Windows 95 or Windows NT and
Access 97 makes the issues even more complex than
they were when using Access 2. There might be a
process running in the background that you're not
aware of, and Access 97 and Jet both provide their
own internal caching. The only sure way to provide
accurate timings would be to remove all background
processes and to reboot between each timing. That's
not practical, so we'll mention again that the timing
results presented here are for comparison purposes
only. You'll need to decide for yourself in some of the
marginal cases whether the optimisation will really help.
Therefore, a word of warning: take any suggestions of
optimisations with a grain of salt. Try them out in your
own applications before swearing by them. As they say
in the auto industry, "These numbers are for
comparison only. Your mileage may vary."

To simplify your experiments with the test cases presented here,

you can use frmRunTests from the sample database. Figure 4
shows this form in use. It includes a combo box from which you
can choose the specific test case to run and spin buttons allowing
you to specify how many loops to execute inside the routine, as
well as how many times to call each routine. The View Slower and
View Faster buttons pop up forms that pull the source code for the
functions directly from the basTests module, so you can look at
the code as you test. Finally, the clock button starts the test,
running the slow version as many times as you've requested and
then running the faster version the same number of times.

Figure 4: frmRunTests allows you to choose a specific test and run it,
resulting in a comparison between the slow and fast versions.

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resulting in a comparison between the slow and fast versions.

Clearly, this method of testing is far from perfect. The order in

which you run the tests might make a difference, and Access, Jet,
and the operating system caches all make a difference, too. In
informal testing (and that's all this can be — measurements of
relative differences), none of these factors made much difference.
Reversing the order of the tests made almost no difference.
Remember, the goal of these tests is to determine which of two
methods is faster, not to gather exact timings. In each case I ran
the tests on a Pentium Pro 200 with 64MB of memory (which
certainly removes the lack-of-hardware issue from the possible set
of problems). The percentage differences I found depend totally on
the specific tests I ran and the setup of the system, but I've tried
to make them representative of the kinds of improvements you'd
see, too.

Note: Some of the differences may disappear or

reverse in low-memory situations as things are
swapped back and forth from your Windows swap file.

The results of the performance tests are summarised in Figure 5.

Test Optimisation Approximate

Number Effectiveness of
Speedup

1 Integer variables instead of 50–60%

variants

2* Integer division instead of 15-25%

real division

3 Logical assignments instead 30–35%

of If…Then

4 Len for testing for zero- 30–40%

length strings

5 "Not var" to toggle 60–70%

True/False

6 timeGetTime() instead of Around 200%

Timer()

7 Use object variables 200–300%

8* Use implicit logical 10–20%

comparisons

9* Use "!" rather than string 50-60%

expression

10 IsCharAlphaNumeric instead Around 100%

of Asc

11 Use DBEngine(0)(0) instead 15000–20000% (running

of CurrentDb across a network)

12 If…Then…Else instead of IIf Depends on your code

(100%, in the test case)

13 db.Execute instead of Around 200%

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13 db.Execute instead of Around 200%

RunSQL

14 Be careful with string 300-500% (depends on

concatenation the exact text)

15* Remove comments from No improvement

code

16 Use bookmarks rather than Around 900%

FindFirst to find rows

17* Drop default collection No difference

names in expressions

18 Refresh collections only Around 1000% (depends

when necessary on the number of
objects)

19 Use Asc("x") = y rather 200–300%

than Chr$(y) = "x"

20 Use vbNullString Instead of Around 50%

"" to Initialise Strings

21 Put most likely candidate Around 600% (depends

first in Select Case on the number of Cases)

*These items really aren't going to affect your code one way or the
other!

Figure 5: Summary of the results of the VBA performance tests.

Some of the comparisons are more dependent than others on the

assumptions made. For example, Test2, which evaluates the
difference between using Integer and real division, couldn't be
constructed in too many different ways. It's doubtful you'd get
results differing much from those in Figure 5 by rewriting the code.
On the other hand, Test12, which compares decisions made using
IIf and the If...Then construct, will give widely differing results
depending on the details of what you're doing in the "true" and
"false" cases of the construct. Thus, it's important to be aware of
the assumptions made for each test when interpreting the results.

Tip: In running these tests, I tried both the MDB file

and a corresponding MDE file. In some of the tests,
using an MDE file didn't change the comparative results
but did make an improvement in the absolute results.
(That is, the ratio of slower to faster didn't change,
but the time elapsed for each test, in total, was less.)
These tests aren't particularly indicative of how real
applications will benefit from conversion to MDE format,
but certainly, the conversion could improve the speed
of your compiled code.

You're very unlikely to use the specific code I've written in your
own applications; it's the concepts that count. For each test case,
the name of the procedure in basTests in the sample database is
Test Na (the presumed slow version) or TestNb (the supposedly
faster version), where N is the test number. For example, the code
corresponding to test case 5 is Test5a and Test5b.
Top

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Test 1: Use Integers Instead of

Variants Whenever Possible?
Unless you specify otherwise, VBA creates all variables using its
default type, Variant. To hold data of any simple type, variants
must be at least as big and complex as any of the types they can
contain. "Big and complex" equates with "slower," so avoid variants
if at all possible. Of course, there will be many times when you
can't avoid them, but if you're just ill informed or being lazy, your
code will suffer.

Note: This optimisation makes sense only within VBA.

If you're working with data from tables in your code,
you must use variants. Because variants are the only
datatype that can hold null data, and it's usually
possible for data from tables to be null, you'll avoid
problems by using variants. In addition, you may find
that attempting to use specific datatypes when
working with Jet ends up slowing your code. Because
Jet uses variants when it communicates with Access,
when you place Jet data into specific datatypes, you're
asking VBA to make a datatype conversion, and that
takes time.

Top

Test 2: Use Integer Division

Whenever Possible?
Access provides two division operators, the / (floating-point
division) and \ (Integer division) operators. To perform floating-
point division, Access must convert the operands to floating-point
values. This takes time. If you don't care about the fractional
portion of the result, you can save some time by using the Integer
division operator instead.

The results of this test were decidedly mixed. Using Integer division
made almost no difference (and it did make a difference in Access
2.0). In some other examples, working with forms, for instance, this
has made a difference. It may be that VBA is smart enough to use
Integer math internally if it can tell that that's what will work most
quickly.
Top

Test 3: Use Logical Assignments When

Possible?
Like many other languages, Access handles logical values as
integers. In addition, Access performs right-to-left expression
evaluation. The combination of these two features allows you to
make logical assignments directly as part of an expression. For
example, many people write code like this:

If x = 5 Then
y = True
Else

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Else
y = False
End If

Top

This code is wordier than it needs to be. The intent is to set the
variable y to True if x is equal to 5 and False otherwise. The
expression (x = 5) has a truth value of its own- -that is, it's either
True or False. You can assign that value directly to y in a single
statement:

y = (x = 5)

Although it may look confusing, VBA will interpret it correctly.

Starting from the right, Access will calculate the value of the
expression x = 5 (either True or False) and assign that value to the
variable y. Other languages, including C and Pascal, use distinct
assignment and equality operators, making this expression a little
clearer. In C, for example, the statement would read:

y = (x == 5)

with the "=" performing the assignment and the "==" checking the
equality.

Anyplace you use an expression like the If...Then...End If

statement above, you should be able to replace it with a single
assignment statement.

If you find these logical assignments hard to read, you may choose
to skip using them, because the improvement in performance is
slight. If, however, logical assignments seem natural to use and
read, then by all means use them.
Top

Test 4: Use Len to Test for Zero-

Length Strings?
There are several ways you can check to see whether the length
of a particular string is 0. One method is to compare the string to
"", and another is to compare the length of the string to 0.
Comparing the results of the Len function to 0 is measurably faster.

Top

Test 5: Use "Var = Not Var" to Toggle

True/False?
In many circumstances you need to toggle the state of a variable
between True and False. You might be tempted to write code like
this:

If x = True Then
x = False
Else
x = True
End If

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End If

You might think that either of the following solutions would be an

improvement over the original:

If x Then
x = False
Else
x = True
End If

or:

x = IIf(x, False, True)

Testing shows that neither is as good as the original expression

(and the IIf solution is much slower). But the best solution is to
use the following expression:

x = Not x

That way, if x is currently True, it will become False. If it's False, it

will become True.

Top

Test 6: Use timeGetTime Rather Than

Timer?
As mentioned earlier in this paper, the Windows API function
timeGetTime (aliased as timeGetTime in the examples) returns the
number of milliseconds that have elapsed since you started the
current Windows session. The VBA Timer function returns the
number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight. If you're
interested in measuring elapsed times, you're far better off using
timeGetTime, for three reasons:

l timeGetTime is more accurate.

l timeGetTime runs longer without "rolling over."

l Calling timeGetTime is significantly faster.

Calling timeGetTime is no more complex than calling Timer, once

you've included the proper API declaration for it. In the
declarations section of any standard module in your application,
you'll need to include the statement

Private Declare Function timeGetTime Lib "winmm.dll" () As Long

With that declaration in place, you can call it from any module in
your application, just as though it was an internal Access function.

Top

Test 7: Cache Object References?

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In writing code you often need to retrieve or set properties of the

various forms, reports, and controls in your application. Generally,
you refer to these objects with statements like this:

strCaption = Forms!frmTest!cmdButton1.Caption

For a single reference to an object, there's not much you can to do

speed up the reference. If, on the other hand, you're going to be
referring to many of the properties of that object or using that
object in a loop of some sort, you can achieve a substantial speed
increase by pointing an object variable at that object and using
that variable to reference the object.

For example, if you were going to reference all of a specific

control's properties, you would be well served to use code like this
rather than refer to the control with the full syntax each time:

Dim ctl as Control

Set ctl = Forms!YourForm!YourControl
Debug.Print ctl.ControlName
Debug.Print ctl.Width
' etc...

In addition, using VBA's With...End With syntax affords the same

improvements. Your code may end up being more readable if you
use cached object references, but if you can use With...End With,
it, too, can speed up your code.

Top

Test 8: Don't Use Explicit Logical

Comparisons?
When testing for the truth value of an expression in an IIf
expression or an If...Then...Else statement, there is no point in
actually comparing the condition to the value True. That is, these
two expressions are completely equivalent:

If x = True Then

and:

If x Then

Leaving out the explicit comparison will make only a small difference
in the speed of your code. You'd have to use this construct many,
many times before this optimisation made any measurable
difference in the speed of your code, but every little bit helps.

Top

Test 9: Use "!" Instead of String

Expression?
Access gives you several choices when you're referring to elements
of a collection. You can use either a direct, hard-coded reference,
such as:

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such as:

strName = rst.Fields!LastName

or a string expression containing the name, such as:

strName = rst.Fields("LastName")

In general, referring to items within a collection using a hard-coded

reference (and a "!" operator) is somewhat faster.

Top

Test 10: Use IsCharAlphaNumeric?

You may find yourself needing to find out whether a particular
character is an alphanumeric character (that is, checking to see
whether it falls in the range of characters from A–Z, a–z, or 0–9).
One standard method for doing this in VBA is to compare the Asc
(UCase(character)) to the ANSI values for the ranges. The
Windows API provides a function specifically for this purpose,
IsCharAlphaNumeric (aliased as IsCharAlphaNumeric in the
examples). In addition, you can use a similar API function,
IsCharAlpha, to check a character to see whether it's between A
and Z. An added bonus of using the Windows API functions is that
they're internationalised. Many characters outside the normal A–Z
range are considered legal text characters in other countries. The
brute-force comparison method would fail on such characters. To
top it all off, using the API method is significantly faster than
performing the comparisons yourself.

To use IsCharAlphaNumeric, you need to include the following

declaration in your application:

Private Declare Function IsCharAlphaNumeric _

Lib "User32" Alias "IsCharAlphaNumericA" (ByVal cChar As Byte)

NOTE: Interestingly, in Visual Basic 5.0, it's even

faster to use the Like operator than it is to use
IsCharAlphaNumeric. That is, you can use "If Chr(x)
Like "[A-Za-z0-0]" to check for validity. This method is
slower than using VBA code, in Access 97. I have no
idea why this is.

Top

Test 11: Use DBEngine(0)(0) If Speed

Is the Only Concern?
If all you care about is raw speed, retrieving a reference to the
current database with DBEngine(0)(0) is much faster than using
CurrentDb. When you retrieve a reference with DBEngine(0)(0), like
this:

Dim db As Database
Set db = DBEngine(0)(0)

Access returns a reference to an object that's already open. When

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Access returns a reference to an object that's already open. When

you use CurrentDb, however, Access creates a new internal data
structure, which obviously takes a bit longer — actually, a lot
longer. In sample tests, using DBEngine(0)(0) was 500 to 1000
percent faster.

However, don't forget the trade-offs. When you retrieve a

reference to CurrentDb, you're guaranteed that its collections are
refreshed at that time. If you use DBEngine(0)(0), you can make
no such assumption, and you should refresh any collections you
need to use. On the other hand, refreshing the collection will
usually make using DBEngine(0)(0) slower than using CurrentDB.
You'll have to make up your own mind.

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Test 12: Watch Out for Slow IIf

Components?
Shorter code isn't necessarily faster. Although this fact is
documented in both the Access online help and the manuals, it's
easy to miss: in the IIf, Choose, and Select functions, VBA
evaluates any and all expressions it finds, regardless of whether
they actually need to be evaluated from a logical point of view.
Given an expression like this:

varValue = IIf(fFlag, Function1(), Function2())

VBA will call both Function1 and Function2. Not only can this lead
to undesired side effects, it can just plain slow down your program.
In a case like this you're better off using the standard
If...Then...End If construct, which will execute only the portions of
the statement that fall within the appropriate clause. Given the
statement:

If fFlag Then
varValue = Function1()
Else
varValue = Function2()
End If

you can be assured that only Function1 or Function2 will end up

being called. The same concepts apply for the Choose and Select
functions. If you plan on calling functions from any of these
functions, you may be better served by using an If...Then...End If
or a Select Case statement.

Beyond any optimisation considerations, IIf is very dangerous when

dealing with numeric values and division. If this was your
expression:

intNew = IIf(intY = 0, 0, intX/intY)

it would appear that you had appropriately covered your bases.

Your code checks to make sure intY isn't 0 and returns an
appropriate value if it is, rather than attempting to divide by 0.
Unfortunately, if y is 0 this statement will still cause a run-time
error. Because Access will evaluate both portions of the IIf
expression, the division by 0 will occur and will trigger an error. In

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expression, the division by 0 will occur and will trigger an error. In

this case you need to either trap for the error or use the
If...Then...Else statement.

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Test 13: Use Execute instead of

RunSQL?
When running an action query from your application, you have
three choices: you can use the RunSQL macro action, the Execute
method of a database object to run SQL code, or you can create a
QueryDef object and then use its Execute method. Using the
Execute method of the database object or creating a temporary
querydef and using its Execute method take about the same
amount of time. On the other hand, using the Execute method of a
database object requires one less line of code and seems like a
simpler solution. Either solution is significantly faster than using
DoCmd RunSQL.

The sample code shows two ways to accomplish the same goal:
deleting all the rows from tblContacts. The slower method uses the
RunSQL action to run the SQL string:

DELETE * From tblContacts

The faster method uses the Execute method of the current

database to execute the SQL string.

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Using Temporary QueryDefs

Access provides a useful mechanism for creating temporary
QueryDef objects: just don't provide a name! If you use a zero-
length string for the name parameter of the CreateQueryDef()
method, Access creates a temporary "in-memory" query. You no
longer have to worry about the proliferation of querydefs and name
collisions, and since Access doesn't write temporary querydefs to
disk, they're a lot faster, too. Another plus: you don't have to
delete temporary querydefs- -they automatically disappear when
the QueryDef object goes out of scope. For example, you can use
code like this to create a temporary querydef:

Dim db As Database
Dim qdf As QueryDef
Set db = CurrentDb()
Set qdf = db.CreateQueryDef("", _
"SELECT * FROM tblCustomers WHERE Age > 30;")

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Test 14: String concatenation is

expensive?
Many times, when writing code, you have the choice whether to
write a string expression as one long expression, or to break it up
into multiple expressions, concatenated together with the "&"

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into multiple expressions, concatenated together with the "&"

operator. Be careful: concatenation is a slow operation in VBA.

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Test 15: Remove Comments from

Loops?
In Access 2.0, removing comments from your code made a
difference in the execution speed. VBA is a compiled language, and
comments ought not make a difference. As the tests show, this is
true: removing comments will not affect the speed of code, all
other things being equal. Be aware that excess comments consume
memory, if you're using the decompiled version of the code
(editing, for example), so they can adversely affect performance
due to memory usage. This shouldn't concern you unless you have
a massive number of comments- Their use far outweighs their
detriments.

In repeated trials, removing comments never seemed to help, and if

anything, caused slightly worse performance more times than not.
This technique gets an unqualified "don't bother." Unless you can
prove to yourself that removing comments in your particular
application makes any difference, leave them in.

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Test 16: Use Bookmarks Rather than

FindFirst to Locate Rows?
If you're working with recordsets as part of your application, you
may need to find a specific row, move to a different row, and then
move back to the first. You can accomplish this in a number of
ways, and some are faster than others. The fastest way is to use
the Seek method of a table-type recordset. However, it's not
always possible to use table-type recordsets. In those cases you
might try using FindFirst to find the row, move to wherever you
need to go, and then use FindFirst again to get back to the original
row. Although this will work, there's a better method: use a
bookmark to store your location before you move away. Then,
when you want to move back to the selected row, the bookmark
can get you there almost instantaneously.

The example procedures first use the FindFirst method of a

recordset to find a row. Then they move to the first row and back
to the original row. The first version uses FindFirst for both record
moves. The second one stores away a bookmark instead and uses
that bookmark to move back to the original record.

Your performance on this test will vary, depending on the number

of rows in the recordset, whether you can use an index for the
search, and how many times you execute the search.

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Test 17: Drop Default Collection

References?
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References?
When working with DAO and its objects and collections, you always
have the option of writing out complete object references or
leaving out default collections in the references. Although leaving
out the default collections in full references may help speed your
code, it does make the code harder to read and its intent less
obvious. The following examples compare using a full reference to a
field against using a shortened version:

strName = DBEngine.Workspaces(0).Databases(0).TableDefs
(0).Fields(0).Name

or:

strName = DBEngine(0)(0)(0)(0).Name

In testing, using the shortened version provided little, if any, speed

difference. Using different references might affect this
acceleration, and you must always weigh the possible speed gains
against readability losses.

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Test 18: Refresh Collections Only

When Necessary?
If you're using DAO and want to make sure the collections you're
working with are completely up to date, you must first use the
Refresh method of the collection. On the other hand, refreshing
collections is a very expensive operation in terms of time. The test
case demonstrates just how expensive: in the sample case, with
just two user-defined tables (and all the normal system tables),
not refreshing the TableDefs collection before retrieving each
TabledDef's RecordCount property was more than 1300 percent
faster than refreshing first. With more objects, this difference
would be even more noticeable. For large applications, the speed
difference can be very noticeable. Of course, if you're working in a
multi-user environment and need to peruse the entire list of
objects, you don't have much choice; you may miss newly added
objects unless you refresh the collection first.

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Test 19: Use Asc("x") = y rather than

Chr$(y) = "x"?
You'll often need to compare a character to its ANSI value. To do
so, you can either compare:

If Chr$(y) = "x"

or:

If Asc("x") = y

It turns out the second method, using Asc rather than Chr$, is

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significantly faster. Because the Chr$ function must take the steps
to fabricate a new string value (a costly operation), the Asc
function can perform the comparison much faster.

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Test 20: Use vbNullString instead of

"" to Initialize Strings?
When you want to re-initialise a string value so that it's empty,
you normally use code like this:

strItem = ""

This creates a new string, and copies it into the strItem variable. It
turns out that a more expeditious solution is to use the vbNullString
constant, a pointer to an empty string. By using:

strItem = vbNullString

VBA doesn't have to create a new string each time you make the
assignment, but uses its own internal pointer to an empty string,
saving a substantial amount of work each time you initialise a string
variable.

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Test 21: Put the most likely candidate

first in Select Case?
VBA is not smart when it comes to Select Case statements. The
only way it can process them is to visit each case in turn, until it
finds a match. If you know that one case is more likely to occur
than others, you can optimise your code by placing that Case first,
and then arrange the rest in descending likelihood of occurrence.

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Summary
This paper has presented a variety of suggestions for improving the
performance of your Access applications. The following topics were
covered:

l Suggestions for optimising your VBA code

l How to test your own optimisation ideas

Although I attempted to cover some major areas of optimisation,

this paper is not meant to be comprehensive, but it makes for a
good start.

At every point in designing any application, you're faced with

choices. These choices affect how well your application will work,
and you need to be informed about the trade-offs in order to best
make these choices. This paper focused on the major areas in
which you can improve the performance of the VBA code in your

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which you can improve the performance of the VBA code in your
applications. Much of the text and examples in this session have
been extracted from:

Access 97 Developer's Handbook

Paul Litwin, Ken Getz, and Mike Gilbert
© 1997. Sybex, Inc.
(with permission of the publisher)

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Ken Getz, a senior consultant with MCW Technologies,

splits his time between programming, writing, and
training. He specialises in tools and applications written
in Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, and the rest of the
Microsoft Office and Microsoft BackOffice suites. Ken is
co-author of several Microsoft Access books, including
Access 97 Developer’s Handbook [Sybex, 1997] and
VBA Developer’s Handbook [Sybex, 1997]. He also co-
wrote the training materials and travels around the
United States teaching Access 97 and VB5 for
Application Developers Training Company. In addition,
Ken is a Contributing Editor for Microsoft Office & Visual
Basic for Applications Developer and Access-Office-VB
Advisor magazines.

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