INFO: Effect of Priority Setting in the References Dialog (142832)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Standard Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
This article was previously published under Q142832

SUMMARY

This article illustrates the effects of changing the priority of references in the References dialog box.

MORE INFORMATION

Note: Changing the order of references in an existing project may break code. For example, given a project that has a reference only to OLE server A (which defines the only "Window" object) and code in 20 different modules that simply uses the syntax "Window". In this program all references to "Window" will resolve to "A.Window". Now suppose the need arises in a single module for a "Window" object provided by server B. While writing code in this module, a programmer switches the priority of server A and B so that the need to use "B.Window" is removed. This causes the code in the 20 other modules to break. Where "Window" used to resolve to "A.Window", it now resolves to "B.Window" because server B is listed before server A in the list of available references. In this case the references should be left in the original order and all calls to "Window" in the single module should be explicitly qualified (for example: "B.Window").

REFERENCES

For more information on this subject, including other methods to manipulate the way Visual Basic chooses what object to use, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

129867 How to Debug Typelib Shadowing

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:5/7/2003
Keywords:kbinfo KB142832
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