Column Property

Microsoft Access Visual Basic

Column Property

       

You can use the Column property to refer to a specific column, or column and row combination, in a multiple-column combo box or list box. Read-only Variant.

expression.Column(Index, Row)

expression   Required. An expression that returns one of the objects in the Applies To list.

Index  Required Long. A long integer that can range from 0 to the setting of the ColumnCount property minus one.

Row  Optional Variant. An integer that can range from 0 to the setting of the ListCount property minus 1.

This property setting is only available by using a macro or Visual Basic. This property setting isn't available in Design view and is read-only in other views.

Remarks

Use 0 to refer to the first column, 1 to refer to the second column, and so on. Use 0 to refer to the first row, 1 to refer to the second row, and so on. For example, in a list box containing a column of customer IDs and a column of customer names, you could refer to the customer name in the second column and fifth row as:

Forms!Contacts!Customers.Column(1, 4)

You can use the Column property to assign the contents of a combo box or list box to another control, such as a text box. For example, to set the ControlSource property of a text box to the value in the second column of a list box, you could use the following expression:

=Forms!Customers!CompanyName.Column(1)

If the user has made no selection when you refer to a column in a combo box or list box, the Column property setting will be Null. You can use the IsNull function to determine if a selection has been made, as in the following example:

If IsNull(Forms!Customers!Country)
    Then MsgBox "No selection."
End If

Note   To determine how many columns a combo box or list box has, you can inspect the ColumnCount property setting.

Example

The following example uses the Column property and the ColumnCount property to print the values of a list box selection.

Public Sub Read_ListBox()

    Dim intNumColumns As Integer
    Dim intI As Integer
    Dim frmCust As Form

    Set frmCust = Forms!frmCustomers
    If frmCust!lstCustomerNames.ItemsSelected.Count > 0 Then

        ' Any selection?
        intNumColumns = frmCust!lstCustomerNames.ColumnCount
        Debug.Print "The list box contains "; intNumColumns; _
            IIf(intNumColumns = 1, " column", " columns"); _
             " of data."

        Debug.Print "The current selection contains:"
        For intI = 0 To intNumColumns - 1
            ' Print column data.
            Debug.Print frmCust!lstCustomerNames.Column(intI)
        Next intI
    Else
        Debug.Print "You haven't selected an entry in the " _
            & "list box."
    End If

    Set frmCust = Nothing

End Sub