Assigning a cell a variable without deleting it's original contents

Question

I'm setting up some VBA in excel to compare two dates to see if they're the same. The problem I'm having is that after assigning the cell's variable to "ActualStartDate", it deletes everything from the cell. So "ActualStartDate" is assigned correctly, but deleted at the same time.

Here's my code, any help would be fantastic. (this activecell stuff is because it's all relative references)

Dim ActualStartDate, ProjectedStartDate
ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Range("A1").Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = ActualStartDate
ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Range("A1").Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = ProjectedStartDate
If ActualStartDate = ProjectedStartDate Then
    ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Range("A1").Interior.Color = RGB(0, 0, 255)
End If

When it runs, it DOES recogize my test dates to be the same and color the cell. It just deletes the content of the cell that contains "ActualStartDate"

Answer 1

All this is doing is moving one cell up, one cell to the left, and replacing that cell's value with nothing.

Dim ActualStartDate
ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Range("A1").Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = ActualStartDate

You create the ActualStartDate variable, but never assign anything to it. So, when you apply the ActualStartDate variables value to a cell, it "deletes" the existing date.

You probably want to do something more like this, though I'm not sure about the Offsets because I don't know how you've designed your spreadsheet.

Sub Button1_Click()
    Dim ActualStartDate, ProjectedStartDate
    ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Select
    ActualStartDate = ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1
    ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
    ProjectedStartDate = ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1
    If ActualStartDate = ProjectedStartDate Then
        ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Interior.Color = RGB(0, 0, 255)
    End If
End Sub

Answer 2

Selecting the cells before changing their value is unnecessary, and FormulaR1C1 is superfluous aswell as you are not entering a range in the formula. The following should do exactly the same, but is I think easier to follow and debug.

** Same caveat as Jim about the offsets, they look a bit odd but might be what is intended **

    Dim ActualStartDate, ProjectedStartDate

    ActualStartDate = ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1)
    ProjectedStartDate = ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0)

    If ActualStartDate = ProjectedStartDate Then
        ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Interior.Color = RGB(0, 0, 255)
    End If

Explicitly declaring the type of your variables as Date is also a good idea, as they are otherwise stored internally as Variant data type which require more memory and can lead to unexpected consequences as Excel is left with the responsibility of deciding how to treat the data.

    Dim ActualStartDate as Date
    Dim ProjectedStartDate as Date

    ActualStartDate = ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1)
    ProjectedStartDate = ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0)

    If ActualStartDate = ProjectedStartDate Then
        ActiveCell.Offset(-1, -1).Interior.Color = RGB(0, 0, 255)
    End If