Declare a 0-Length String Array in VBA - Impossible?

Question

Is it really not possible to declare a 0-length array in VBA? If I try this:

Dim lStringArr(-1) As String

I get a compile error saying rang

Answer 1

If we're going to use WinAPI anyway, we can also cleanly create the array from scratch using the WinAPI SafeArrayCreate function instead of redimensioning it.

Struct declarations:

Public Type SAFEARRAYBOUND
    cElements As Long
    lLbound As Long
End Type
Public Type tagVariant
    vt As Integer
    wReserved1 As Integer
    wReserved2 As Integer
    wReserved3 As Integer
    pSomething As LongPtr
End Type

WinAPI declarations:

Public Declare PtrSafe Function SafeArrayCreate Lib "OleAut32.dll" (ByVal vt As Integer, ByVal cDims As Long, ByRef rgsabound As SAFEARRAYBOUND) As LongPtr
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub VariantCopy Lib "OleAut32.dll" (pvargDest As Any, pvargSrc As Any)
Public Declare PtrSafe Sub SafeArrayDestroy Lib "OleAut32.dll"(ByVal psa As LongPtr)

Use it:

Public Sub Test()
    Dim bounds As SAFEARRAYBOUND 'Defaults to lower bound 0, 0 items
    Dim NewArrayPointer As LongPtr 'Pointer to hold unmanaged string array
    NewArrayPointer = SafeArrayCreate(vbString, 1, bounds)
    Dim tagVar As tagVariant 'Unmanaged variant we can manually manipulate
    tagVar.vt = vbArray + vbString 'Holds a string array
    tagVar.pSomething = NewArrayPointer 'Make variant point to the new string array
    Dim v As Variant 'Actual variant
    VariantCopy v, ByVal tagVar 'Copy unmanaged variant to managed one
    Dim s() As String 'Managed string array
    s = v 'Copy the array from the variant
    SafeArrayDestroy NewArrayPointer 'Destroy the unmanaged SafeArray, leaving the managed one
    Debug.Print LBound(s); UBound(s) 'Prove the dimensions are 0 and -1    
End Sub