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Small tips: validate control array index

I've seen many ways to check whether a certain control index exists in a control array, where all indexes are not filled. For example, you could have a control array of labels with indexes 0, 1 & 3. I guess one of the most common ways to check for this is to use On Error, but I've always found resorting to rising errors a bad habit to do. A much better another alternative is to loop through the control array using For Each and check for the Index property, but even this becomes a bit silly if you know the index you want to check for and loop the entire control array just to check if it is there or not.

The solution: VarType()

VarType returns the variable type of default property of a control, ie. VarType(MyLabels(1)) returns 8 (vbString), from Caption property. What makes this usable for sniffing for valid index is that VarType returns 9 (vbObject) for invalid indexes! There is no control that returns an object in their default property, making this a perfectly safe method to check if an index exists or not.

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' make sure you add MyLabel to your form and set Index property to 0
Option Explicit
Private Sub Form_Load()
  ' control array indexes are Integers
  Dim I As Integer
  Dim C As Label
  
  Load MyLabel(1)
  Load MyLabel(3)
  
  ' solution one: On Error... looping through all controls
  On Error Resume Next
  For I = MyLabel.LBound To MyLabel.UBound
    ' check if the index is there
    MyLabel(I) = MyLabel(I)
    
    If Err = 0 Then
      ' do what you need to do...
    Else
      Debug.Print "On Error, Invalid index: " & I
      Err.Clear
    End If
  Next I
  ' that wasn't pretty...
  On Error GoTo 0
  
  
  ' solution two: For Each for specific index, must loop through all controls
  I = 2
  For Each C In MyLabel
    ' if the index is there we exit the loop
    If C.Index = I Then Exit For
  Next C
  ' if we passed though all controls then C is now Nothing
  If Not C Is Nothing Then
    Debug.Print "For Each, VALID index: " & I
  Else
    Debug.Print "For Each, Invalid index: " & I
  End If
  
  
  ' solution three: VarType looping through all controls
  For I = MyLabel.LBound To MyLabel.UBound
    If VarType(MyLabel(I)) <> vbObject Then
      ' VALID
    Else
      Debug.Print "VarType, Invalid index: " & I
    End If
  Next I
  
  ' solution four: VarType for specific index
  I = 2
  If VarType(MyLabel(I)) = vbObject Then Debug.Print "VarType, Invalid index: " & I
End Sub