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Q129802: PRB: Can’t Have Fixed Length Strings >32K in 32-bit Windows

Article: Q129802
Product(s): Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows
Version(s): WINDOWS:4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kberrmsg kbprogramming kbVBp400 kb32bitOnly
Last Modified: 11-JAN-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual Basic Standard Edition, 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

Attempting to create fixed-length strings within a user-defined type in the
32-bit version of Microsoft Visual Basic version 4.0 generates this error:

  "Fixed or static data can't be larger than 64K"

CAUSE
=====

Because 32-bit Microsoft Visual Basic uses Unicode to store strings and Unicode
requires two bytes per character in a string, fixed-length strings take twice as
many bytes of storage as the 16-bit versions of Visual Basic. If you assign or
dimension more that 32K characters to a string, the storage actually exceeds the
64K limit of Visual Basic user-defined types.

RESOLUTION
==========

Larger strings can be assigned to string elements of user-defined types by using
variable-length strings instead of fixed-length strings.

STATUS
======

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION
================

Steps to Reproduce Behavior
---------------------------

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

2. Add a code module (Module1) to your project by choosing Module from the
  Insert menu.

3. Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Module1:

        Type MyType
           MyString As String * 33000
        End Type

4. Start the program by choosing Start from the Run menu or by pressing the F5
  key. You should see the following run-time error message:

  "Fixed or static data can't be larger than 64K"

Additional query words: double byte character set dbcs

======================================================================
Keywords          : kberrmsg kbprogramming kbVBp400 kb32bitOnly 
Technology        : kbVBSearch kbAudDeveloper kbVB400Search kbVB400
Version           : WINDOWS:4.0
Issue type        : kbprb

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