Question

Suppose I have some module in vba with some variable r of type Range. Suppose that, at some point, I store a Range object there (e.g. the active cell). Now my question: What happens to the value of r if the user deletes the cell (the cell, not only its value)?

I tried to figure this out in VBA, but without success. The result is strange. r is not Nothing, the value of r is reported to be of type Range, but if I try to look at its properties in the debugger window, each property’s value is reported as “object required”.

How can I, programmatically, determine whether variable r is in this state or not?

Can I do this without generating an error and catching it?

Answer 1

Nice question! I’ve never thought about this before, but this function will, I think, identify a range that was initialzed – is not Nothing – but is now in the “Object Required” state because its cells were deleted:

Function RangeWasDeclaredAndEntirelyDeleted(r As Range) As Boolean
Dim TestAddress As String

If r Is Nothing Then
    Exit Function
End If
On Error Resume Next
TestAddress = r.Address
If Err.Number = 424 Then    'object required
    RangeWasDeclaredAndEntirelyDeleted = True
End If
End Function

You can test is like this:

Sub test()
Dim r As Range

Debug.Print RangeWasDeclaredAndEntirelyDeleted(r)
Set r = ActiveSheet.Range("A1")
Debug.Print RangeWasDeclaredAndEntirelyDeleted(r)
r.EntireRow.Delete
Debug.Print RangeWasDeclaredAndEntirelyDeleted(r)
End Sub