Knowledge Base

PRB: "Ambiguous name detected" Compile-Time Error in VB 4.0

Article ID: 129636

Article Last Modified on 12/9/2003

Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 16-bit Enterprise Edition
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition

This article was previously published under Q129636

SYMPTOMS

Better type checking in Microsoft Visual Basic version 4.0 causes it to return a compile-time error message when you declare two functions (or subroutines) with the same name in the same module or form. This is a change in behavior from Microsoft Visual Basic version 3.0.

The error message returned is:

Ambiguous name detected: <function or sub name>

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Start a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

Add the following code to the general declarations section of Form1:

   Private Declare Function GetSystemDirectory Lib "Kernel" _
      (ByVal strBuffer As String, ByVal intSize As Integer) As Integer
   Private Declare Function GetSystemDirectory% Lib "Kernel" _
      (ByVal lpBuffer$, ByVal nSize%)

Attempt to run the application by pressing the F5 key. Visual Basic will not run the application. Instead you will get this error message:
Ambiguous name detected: GetSystemDirectory

Additional query words: 4.00 vb4win vb4all

Keywords: kbprb KB129636