XL2000: Out of Stack Space Error With Recursive Subroutine and Loop Structure

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This article was previously published under Q266156

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Symptoms

When you run a Microsoft Excel Visual Basic for Applications subroutine you receive the following error:

Run Time Error 28: Out of Stack Space

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Cause

The error message appears if both of the following conditions are true:

You call the same Visual Basic for Applications subroutine that you are running from within itself (recursively).

-and-
The subroutine call is designed to run over and over again from within a loop.

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Workaround

To work around this behavior, use a GoTo statement in your code to branch to a previous line label instead of calling the name of the subroutine itself.

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More information

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. For more information about how to use the sample code in this article, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

212536� OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

Sample Code

The following sample code generates the error message described in the "Symptoms" section:

Global y
Sub test1()
    For x = 1 To 100
        y = y + 1
        If y > 100000 Then
            MsgBox y
            End
        End If
        test1 'Starts loop over again by calling the macro by name
    Next x ' Code never gets this far
End Sub

To correct this code, add a label to the subroutine and add the GoTo statement as shown in the following example:

Sub test2()
Marker:
    For x = 1 To 100
        y = y + 1
        If y > 100000 Then
            MsgBox y
            End
        End If
        GoTo Marker 'Starts loop over at the line labeled Marker 
    Next x ' Code never gets this far
End Sub

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References

For more information about using the GoTo statement and line labels, in the Visual Basic Editor, click Microsoft Visual Basic Help on the Help menu, type GoTo Statement in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.

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