I am using this code (page 22) of your book Visual Basic Professional 2008 (Bill Evjen,Billy Hollis,Bill Sheldon,Kent Sharkey) and is not working.

Dim objMyClass As New MyClass("Hello World")
Console.WriteLine(objMyClass.ToString)

Keep receiving error as follows:

MyClass : Keyword does not name a type

objMyClass: name objClass is not declare

Thank you.

The code sample you have included is just to illustrate that *any* object instance can call a ToString method. The MyClass type hasn't been defined; it is just a placeholder for some type name of a class that is either part of the .NET framework, or which you have defined somewhere else in your project.

I must admit that the type name chosen (MyClass) is a bit unfortunate, because it's a keyword and couldn't be used as the name of a class in real code. I would have chosen something different (I didn't write this particular chapter).

However, this code was never meant to work as-is - it is just intended to illustrate a minor point, and the experienced reader is expected to understand the need to insert a real class identifier (with an appropriate constructor argument) when using the technique.

Such generic placeholders are not uncommon in snippets, because it takes so long to go through a step-by-step to do a complete example of even a fairly minor point such as usage of ToString. It would have been necessary to go through the entire procedure for defining a simple class just to make a quick point.

Keep in mind that this is a book in the Professional series, so a certain level of coding expertise and experience is assumed. If you feel that you need more detail for illustration of points like this, the Beginning series might be a better choice for you.

Thank you. It's been of great help.

Best regards,

Enrique Bello