Microsoft KB Archive/181102

= WD97: Run-Time Error 5 Using Mid, Left, or Right Function =

Article ID: 181102

Article Last Modified on 8/20/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q181102



For a Microsoft Word 2002 version of this article, see 290969.



SYMPTOMS
When you use the Mid, Right, or Left functions, you may receive the following error message:

Run-time error '5': "Invalid procedure call or argument"



CAUSE
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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

This problem occurs when the length argument for the statement is negative.

NOTE: In Word 2.0 for Windows, a negative value in the count argument of the Mid$, Right$, or Left$ functions is ignored and does not generate an error.

The Mid function returns a portion of a text string starting at a given character position. The syntax for the command is

Mid(, [, ])

where is the text string to search, is the character position from which to start, and is the number of characters to return. If no argument is specified, or if there are fewer than characters in the text, the function returns all the characters from the position to the end of the string.

The following sample macro illustrates the error message described in the "Symptoms" section of this article: Sub ErrorOccurs

Dim Test As String Test = Mid("hello", 1, -1) MsgBox Test

End Sub The following sample macro returns the error because the length of the string variable (Test) minus one is a negative number (0 - 1 = -1): Sub ErrorOccurs

Dim Test As String Dim ReturnText As String Test = ""

' Empty string, could be passed as an empty dialog ' variable, for example. ReturnText = Mid(Test, Len(Test) - 1)

End Sub NOTE: Word 2.0 for Windows ignores a -1 value for the argument. So in Word 2.0, all the characters from the first character position to the end of the string appear in the message box. In the first example, the string "hello" appears.



RESOLUTION
To keep this error from ocurring, first test the length of the string, as in the following example: Sub ErrorDoesNotOccur

Dim Test As String Dim ReturnText As String

' Empty string, could be passed as an empty dialog ' variable, for example. Test = ""

' Test the length of the string to ensure ' that subtracting 1 from the length leaves ' at least 1 character. If Len(Test) - 1 > 0 then ReturnText = Mid(Test, Len(Test) - 1) End If

End Sub

