What is &H8000?

By Timothy J. Green | Created on 2025-08-02 20:31:08

Written with a enthusiastic tone 🤩 | Model: qwen2.5-coder:latest

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&H8000 is a hexadecimal value that represents the most significant bit (MSB) in a 16-bit integer. In binary, it is represented as 1000000000000000. When this bit is set to 1, it indicates that the corresponding key or button is pressed down.

Example: Checking if the Shift Key is Pressed

The code snippet you provided demonstrates how to check if the Shift key is pressed:

Public Const VK_SHIFT = &H10
Dim IsShifted As Boolean

IsShifted = (GetKeyState(VK_SHIFT) And &H8000) <> 0

This code uses bitwise AND to check if the most significant bit is set in the return value of GetKeyState. If it is, then the Shift key is pressed.

Example: Checking if the Alt Key is Pressed

You can use a similar approach to check if the Alt key is pressed:

Public Const VK_ALT = &H12
Dim IsALT As Boolean

IsALT = (GetKeyState(VK_ALT) And &H8000) <> 0

Example: Copying Text to Clipboard with Alt and X

You can use the following code to copy text to the clipboard when the user presses Alt and X:

Public Const VK_ALT = &H12
Public Const VK_X = &H58

If (GetKeyState(VK_ALT) And &H8000) <> 0 Then
    If GetAsyncKeyState(VK_X) < 0 Then
        Clipboard.SetText "Your text here"
    End If
End If

Conclusion

&H8000 is a hexadecimal value that represents the most significant bit in a 16-bit integer. It can be used to check if a key or button is pressed down by using bitwise AND with the return value of GetKeyState.

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