"Formal Parameter Specification Illegal" for DECLARE Variable (39378)

SUMMARY

The BC.EXE compiler generates a "Formal parameter specification illegal" error when a DECLARE statement uses a variable that is the same name as a FUNCTION or SUB previously declared in the program. The QB.EXE editor will not generate an error for the same DECLARE statement.

In general, you should never have any variables with the same name as any other identifier in your programs. You should also avoid having any two variables or identifiers that only differ by the data type specifier. For example A$ and A% are poor choices for variable names in the same program.

MORE INFORMATION

The DECLARE statement is only used as a prototype for checking the number and types of the arguments used to invoke the procedures, and it affects the entire module. The type of the variables can be INTEGER, LONG, SINGLE, DOUBLE, STRING, or a user-defined type. Fixed-length strings (STRING*n) cannot be used in a DECLARE statement, because only variable-length strings can be passed to SUB and FUNCTION procedures.

More information about the DECLARE statement can be found in the "Microsoft QuickBasic: Basic Language Reference" manual (on pages 139-146 for QuickBasic Versions 4.00 and 4.00b; pages 55-56, 271, 299, and 332- 333 for QuickBasic Version 4.50; and pages 139-146 for Basic Compiler Versions 6.00, and 6.00b).

The following is a code example:

DECLARE FUNCTION test% (Num%)
DECLARE SUB ShowTest (test%)   ' This will generate an error
A = test%(10)
ShowTest (A)
END

SUB ShowTest (Var%)
    PRINT Var%
END SUB

FUNCTION test% (Num%)
    test% = Num%
END FUNCTION

The following error is generated for the above program:

Microsoft (R) QuickBasic Compiler Version 4.50
(C) Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1982-1988.
All rights reserved.
Simultaneously published in the U.S. and Canada.
0030 0006 DECLARE SUB ShowTest (test%)
^ Formal parameter
specification illegal

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