How to get Oracle Financial Management (HFM) to spot misspelled variables for you

This post will tell you how to get HFM to spot misspelled variables in rules files automatically. For example. if you write run a rule like this:

Sub Calculate
    AccountList = HS.Account.List("","AList") 
    For Each AccountMember In AccountList 
        HS.Clear "A#" & AccountMem 
    Next 
End Sub

it will clear all accounts! This is because AccountMember has been misspelled as AccountMem and HFM therefore creates a new empty variable, AccountMem. Errors like this can be very hard to spot.

However, there is a simple solution to this problem. Put Option Explicit at the start of your rules file and declare all variables with Dim. For example:

Option Explicit 
Sub Calculate 
    Dim AccountList, AccountMember
    AccountList = HS.Account.List("","AList") 
    For Each AccountMember In AccountList 
        HS.Clear "A#" & AccountMem 
    Next 
End Sub

When this rule is calculated in a grid or form, a message like EPMHFM-102: Error executing VBScript %0 will be displayed and a message like Error executing VBScript Microsoft VBScript runtime error, Line 3:Variable is undefined: ‘AccountList’ will be written to System Messages.

Where is it best to declare variables? 

In programming languages such as Java, variables can be declared when they are used like this:

int result = 1; 

This is not possible in VB rules. I find it easiest to declare variables at the start of procedures:

Sub BlockByCustom1 
    Dim AccountList, AccountMember 
    Dim Custom1List, Custom1Member
    :
End Sub 

As I am a bit of a neat freak, I put them in alphabetical order!

What about Calc Manager? 

As far as I am aware it is not possible to use Option Explicit with Calc Manager. However, if anyone knows better I would be very interested know how.