Knowledge Base

PRB: Wrong Number of Arguments Error When Call Math Functions

Article ID: 129872

Article Last Modified on 12/9/2003

Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition
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 Q129872

SYMPTOMS

Adding a reference to Microsoft Excel's Type Library from Visual Basic version 4.0 and then early binding an instance of Microsoft Excel's Application Object results in the following error message, when calling a Math function on that object:

Wrong number of arguments or invalid property assignment.

CAUSE

All the math functions in the Microsoft Excel Type Library are typed as receiving no arguments, but most of them do have arguments. This is displayed in the help string for the corresponding math function in Visual Basic's Object Browser.

RESOLUTION

Use late binding with a generic object. For example, use the following code in the Form_Click event in the "Steps to Reproduce Behavior" section of this article:

   Dim XLApp As Object
   Set XLApp = CreateObject("excel.application")
   z = XLApp.Atan2(3, 4)
   MsgBox Str$(z)

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 Form_Click event:

      Dim XLApp As Excel.Application
      Set XLApp = CreateObject("excel.application")
      z = XLApp.Atan2(3, 4)  ' Get an error here on wrong number of args.
      MsgBox Str$(z)

Choose References from the Tools menu. Select the reference for Microsoft Excel 5.0 Object Library, and then click the OK button.
Press the F5 key to Run the program. You will get an error message on the line that calls the Atan2 function.

Keywords: kberrmsg kbprogramming kbprb KB129872