ACC: How to Create a Collection of Collections

ID: Q154448

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Access versions 7.0, 97

SUMMARY

Moderate: Requires basic macro, coding, and interoperability skills.

A limitations of the Visual Basic for Applications Collection object is that it cannot contain a user-defined data type. You can achieve similar behavior, however, by creating a collection that contains the elements that you would normally define in your user-defined data type, and then storing that collection in a second collection. This article shows you how to create such "nested" collections.

This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to your version of the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access" manual.

MORE INFORMATION

To create a collection within a collection, follow these steps:

1. Create a module and type the following procedure:

      Function CollectionCollection()
         Dim element
         Dim insideCollection As New Collection
         Dim outsideCollection As New Collection

         ' Populate the first element of the collection and add
         ' it to the parent collection.
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="fname", Item:="joe"
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="lname", Item:="smith"
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="age", Item:=12
         outsideCollection.Add insideCollection

         ' Clear the collection - prevents duplication of elements.
         Set insideCollection = Nothing

         ' Populate the second element of the collection and add
         ' it to the parent collection.
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="fname", Item:="fred"
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="lname", Item:="smith"
         insideCollection.Add KEY:="age", Item:=14
         outsideCollection.Add insideCollection

         ' Print the contents of the parent collection to the Debug window.
         For Each element In outsideCollection
            Debug.Print element("fname"), element("lname"), element("age")
         Next
      End Function

   press ENTER:

      CollectionCollection

   Note that the contents of the collection appears in the Debug window.

REFERENCES

For more information about collections, search the Help Index for "Collection object."

Additional query words:

Keywords          : PgmObj 
Version           : 7.0 97
Platform          : WINDOWS
Hardware          : x86
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: November 21, 1998