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Visual Basic 6 Internal Event Handling

January 16th, 2009 1 comment

VB6 calls control events in a very specific way. It’s impressive but the design of event handling results in losing a certain number of guaranteed bytes per control used. By losing bytes, I am referring to the addition of redundant bytes in the executable code.

I studied the entire structure with Disassemblers and debuggers and found out that the total number of redundant bytes is  governed by the following formula:

Total Redundant Bytes = SUMMATION OF (4 x (Number_Of_Events + 6 – Events_Used) ) FROM 1 TO N

where:
N = Total Number of Controls Used
Number_Of_Events = Total Number Events Supported by a Control (Different for each control)
Events_Used = Number of Events Used for each control.

So Imagine a simple form having two text boxes and 1 command button for a simple login box, considering that only the following events are used:
Form_Load()
Command1_Click()

The Total number of Redundant Bytes is:
(4*(31+6-1)) + 2*(4*(24+6)) + (4*(17+6-1)) = 472
1 FORM + 2 TEXT BOXES + 1 CMD BTN

That’s 472 unnecessary bytes just for a simple login box using absolutely no user-written code.

Many people refer to VB6 as Visual Bloatware, and you now know why 😉

Categories: Code Internals Tags: , ,