Why is this NOT producing a type mismatch error in VBA?

I'm declaring a variable as an HTMLAnchorElement object which is reserved for html "a" tags. Then I am setting the variable equal to a paragraph tag which should only work for HTMLParaElement objects. Somehow the variable becomes a paraelement object despite being declared otherwise.

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Does anyone at least agree that the expected result would be a type mismatch?

Probably because HTMLAnchorElement is just an interface, just as HTMLParaElement is likely to be. I can't remember what the base object is, probably something like HTMLElement, so it's not particularly surprising.

Originally Posted by Kyle123

Probably because HTMLAnchorElement is just an interface, just as HTMLParaElement is likely to be. I can't remember what the base object is, probably something like HTMLElement, so it's not particularly surprising.

I was under the impression these were actual objects. Would interfaces show up in the object browser?

Also, let's say it is an interface....In order to avoid a type mismatch, the sub-interface would have to be encapsulated by the super interface, correct? So the HTMLParaElement would have to implement the HTMLanchorelement interface at the very least. But it works fine and the same thing happens if you switch the paragraph element with the anchor element.

Also, in my further testing, even if I declare el as an htmlanchorelement but then try to set it to IE.document, it still works fine. How could that be given that htmlanchorelement would be below htmldocument on the interface hierarchy?

No, they all just have to implement the HTMLNodeElement (or whatever the base element is). What makes you think they're not interfaces? Yes, interfaces would still show up.

Dunno, haven't looked, the node is probably the actual object. Whatever it may be called in the object browser.

HTML is hierarchical, so you're better off navigating using the dom. You can do something like:

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If you want to loop through specific types, you should be able to Dim el as HTMLAnchorElement for the above.

BTW I'm only guessing

Originally Posted by romperstomper

When you declare an object variable As something, all you're telling the compiler is that it will be an object that implements the interface you specified. The Object itself could be a totally different class. (that's why you can declare any object variable as Object and then pass any class to it)

In this scenario, the core object would implement both the HTMLanchorelement interface, the HTMLparaelementinterface, as well as the HTMLdocument interface. The HTMLdocument object would also implement the individual element interfaces for some reason?

Since I can declare el as an HTMLdocument but then set it equal to a paragraph element?