Syntax Question?

[N. Demos]

In the ASP.Net (VB.Net) book I'm reading (learning from) the syntax used
for class inheritance uses a colon between the class declaration and the
inheritance statement.

EX:
Public Class MyClassName : Inherits ParentClassName


Elsewhere, I have seen the following syntax without the colon operator.

Public Class MyClassName
Inherits ParentClassName

I've had no problems (that I know of) with either sytax style when
compling and running code.

Which is the correct syntax, or are both correct? Thanks for your time.

Regards,
N. Demos

 

[Brock Allen]

The ":" syntax in VB.NET is the line break (or continuation) character. VB.NET
wants Inherits on the next line, but the : is a shortcut to doing that. They
are equivalent.

 

[Guest]

It's strange - most developers (probably even the author of the book you
mention) would say that joining lines with ":" is poor style, but since the
colon is coincidentally the same operator used for signifying inheritance in
C#, many of the same developers use the line join operator there in VB
without even thinking about it.

David Anton
www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com
Home of:
Instant C#: VB.NET to C# Converter
Instant VB: C# to VB.NET Converter
Instant J#: VB.NET to J# Converter

 

[N. Demos]

David, Brock,
Thanks for the info. What about the old VB line continuation character
"_" (underscore). Are there two line continuation characters now?

Regards,
N. Demos

 

[N. Demos]

David, Brock,
Thanks for the info. What about the old VB line continuation character
"_" (underscore). Are there two line continuation characters now?

Regards,
N. Demos

Disregard this, I now realize these do not perform the same function.

Regards,
N. Demos

 

[Craig Deelsnyder]

Disregard this, I now realize these do not perform the same function.

Regards,
N. Demos

Yes, a little confusing IMHO use of : in VB.NET is poor practice as
it leads to hard-to-follow code. It's too easy to slip some code in at
the end of a line that someone else could 'skip over', as we're usually
used to 1 command per line (or 1 command split across multiple lines at
most).

Some would argue differently for such a 'minor' thing like marking
inheritance, but hey, believe me after 8 years, I live by 'practice
makes perfect'