I've been working with VBScript for a number of months. For this reason I don't expect to find a solution to this (:-/), but I was wondering if anybody knew of a way to declare static classes/methods/properties in VBScript, or simulate it in a human-friendly way.

For example:

    Class Convert ' [Static] Class Convert
        Public Function ToInteger(intInteger)
            If IsNumeric(intInteger) Then
                ToInteger = CInt(intInteger)
            Else
                ToInteger = CInt(0)
            End If
        End Function
    End Class

So that using it would require no instantiation, rather you can simply:

    Dim intInteger: intInteger = Convert.ToInteger(234.23)

When I realized that this directly doesn't work I attempted something like the following:

    Class Conversion ' [Static] Class Conversion
        Public Function ToInteger(intInteger)
            If IsNumeric(intInteger) Then
                ToInteger = CInt(intInteger)
            Else
                ToInteger = CInt(0)
            End If
        End Function
    End Class

    Dim Convert: Set Convert = New Conversion

Which would allow...

    Dim intInteger: intInteger = Convert.ToInteger(234.23)

However, the problem is cleanup afterward. I've always been told that explicitly cleaning up the objects will speed up execution:

    Set Convert = Nothing

However, in this model both the class and instantiation would be <!--#include -->'d into the script, leaving the cleanup of Convert to either the programmer to know and remember at the bottom, or another <!--#include --> which does the cleanup (that the programmer would still have to know about and remember).

Otherwise, I could leave instantiation to the programmer (who would then know to cleanup the object), however, it would be a lot nicer if that was taken care of for him automatically.

Suggestions? I've got cookies...

** EDIT **

The reason I'm creating this class in the first place is to handle the Null checks for all of the conversion functions, which for whatever stupid reason crash when passed a Null value.

Okay, so VB's "Static" keyword does something different? Shared vs. Static.

The only difference I can see is that Shared applies to methods, and Static applies to local variables. Am I right?

However, VB.NET shouldn't require a class like this because the "static" Convert class's methods can, IIRC, handle Null. VBScript is really stupid in that if you did something like the following...

    <%
        Dim varImNull: varImNull = Null
        Dim strImNull

        strImNull = CStr(varImNull) ' BOOM!
    %>

...the script will throw an exception and blow up. For whatever reason, conversion functions in VBScript are not capable of handling the value Null.

I appreciate the keywords, but I doubt that they are built into VBScript. I'll double-check on Monday when I get back to work. I guess there's really no way to do it in VBScript... I skimmed over a search result on MSDN that suggested that even implementing other technologies from VBScript results in errors when calling static methods.

In the meantime, can anybody think of a fancy way to simulate a static method?

- Source

I don't think so. You tell me... What's the syntax, at least...?

VBScript is missing a lot of VB keywords, etc. In fact, a lot of what it has now was added over a long period of time as developers complained of it's lack of capability... In the beginning it was V[ERY]BScript.

For example, the whole reason I want this functionality is because VBScript crashes when you try to convert Null to another data type. When you're pulling data from a database it requires constant !null checks to avoid errors.