Displays a message in a dialog box, waits for the user to click a button, and
returns a value indicating which button the user clicked.
MsgBox(prompt[,buttons][,title][,helpfile,context])
Arguments
- prompt
- String expression displayed as the message in the dialog box. The maximum
length ofpromptis approximately 1024 characters, depending on the width
of the characters used. Ifpromptconsists of more than one line, you can
separate the lines using a carriage return character (Chr(13)), a
linefeed character (Chr(10)), or carriage return–linefeed
character combination (Chr(13) & Chr(10)) between each
line.
- buttons
- Numeric expression that is the sum of values specifying the number and type
of buttons to display, the icon style. to use, the identity of the default
button, and the modality of the message box. See Settings section for values. If
omitted, the default value forbuttonsis 0.
- title
- String expression displayed in the title bar of the dialog box. If you omittitle, the application name is placed in the title bar.
- helpfile
- String expression that identifies the Help file to use to provide
context-sensitive Help for the dialog box. Ifhelpfileis provided,contextmust also be provided. Not available on 16-bit platforms.
- context
- Numeric expression that identifies the Help context number assigned by the
Help author to the appropriate Help topic. Ifcontextis provided,helpfilemust also be provided. Not available on 16-bit platforms.
Settings
Thebuttonsargument settings are:
| Constant | Value | Description |
|---|
| vbOKOnly | 0 | DisplayOKbutton only. |
| vbOKCancel | 1 | DisplayOKandCancelbuttons. |
| vbAbortRetryIgnore | 2 | DisplayAbort,Retry, andIgnorebuttons. |
| vbYesNoCancel | 3 | DisplayYes,No, andCancelbuttons. |
| vbYesNo | 4 | DisplayYesandNobuttons. |
| vbRetryCancel | 5 | DisplayRetryandCancelbuttons. |
| vbCritical | 16 | Display Critical Message icon. |
| vbQuestion | 32 | Display Warning Query icon. |
| vbExclamation | 48 | Display Warning Message icon. |
| vbInformation | 64 | Display Information Message icon. |
| vbDefaultButton1 | 0 | First button is default. |
| vbDefaultButton2 | 256 | Second button is default. |
| vbDefaultButton3 | 512 | Third button is default. |
| vbDefaultButton4 | 768 | Fourth button is default. |
| vbApplicationModal | 0 | Application modal; the user must respond to the message box
before continuing work in the current application. |
| vbSystemModal | 4096 | System modal; all applications are suspended until the user
responds to the message box. |
The first group of values (0–5) describes the number and type of buttons
displayed in the dialog box; the second group (16, 32, 48, 64) describes the
icon style; the third group (0, 256, 512, 768) determines which button is the
default; and the fourth group (0, 4096) determines the modality of the message
box. When adding numbers to create a final value for the argumentbuttons, use only one number from each group.
Return Values
TheMsgBoxfunction has the following return values:
| Constant | Value | Button |
|---|
| vbOK | 1 | OK |
| vbCancel | 2 | Cancel |
| vbAbort | 3 | Abort |
| vbRetry | 4 | Retry |
| vbIgnore | 5 | Ignore |
| vbYes | 6 | Yes |
| vbNo | 7 | No |
Remarks
When bothhelpfileandcontextare provided, the user can pressF1to view the Help topic corresponding to the context.
If the dialog box displays aCancelbutton, pressing theESCkey has the same effect as clickingCancel. If the dialog box contains aHelpbutton, context-sensitive Help is provided for the dialog box.
However, no value is returned until one of the other buttons is clicked.
When theMsgBoxfunction is used with Microsoft Internet Explorer, the
title of any dialog presented always contains "VBScript.:" to differentiate it
from standard system dialogs.
The following example uses theMsgBoxfunction to display a message
box and return a value describing which button was clicked:
Dim MyVar
MyVar =MsgBox ("Hello World!",65,"MsgBox Example")' MyVar contains either 1 or 2, depending on which button is clicked.
