Visual Basic for Applications Reference

Visual Studio 6.0

Input # Statement

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Reads data from an open sequential file and assigns the data to variables.


Input #filenumber, varlist

The Input # statement syntax has these parts:

Part Description
filenumber Required. Any valid file number.
varlist Required. Comma-delimited list of variables that are assigned values read from the file can't be an array or object variable. However, variables that describe an element of an array or user-defined type may be used.


Data read with Input # is usually written to a file with Write #. Use this statement only with files opened in Input or Binary mode.

When read, standard string or numeric data is assigned to variables without modification. The following table illustrates how other input data is treated:

Data Value assigned to variable
Delimiting comma or blank line Empty
#NULL# Null
#TRUE# or #FALSE# True or False
#yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss# The date and/or time represented by the expression
#ERROR errornumber# errornumber (variable is a Variant tagged as an error)

Double quotation marks (" ") within input data are ignored.

Note   You should not write strings that contain embedded quotation marks, for example, "1,2""X" for use with the Input # statement: Input # parses this string as two complete and separate strings.

Data items in a file must appear in the same order as the variables in varlist and match variables of the same data type. If a variable is numeric and the data is not numeric, a value of zero is assigned to the variable.

If you reach the end of the file while you are inputting a data item, the input is terminated and an error occurs.

Note   To be able to correctly read data from a file into variables using Input #, use the Write # statement instead of the Print # statement to write the data to the files. Using Write # ensures each separate data field is properly delimited.