excel - Performance difference between looping range vs looping array

Question

Will there be any difference in performance (speed) when looping through a range Vs assigning the same range to an Array and looping an Array?

Answer 1

Looping through an array is way faster than looking through a range.

See my test below:

Option Explicit

Const strRANGE_ADDRESS As String = "A1:A100000"

Sub LoopRangeAddOne()

    Dim r As Range
    Dim lStart As Double
    Dim lEnd As Double

    lStart = Timer

    For Each r In Range(strRANGE_ADDRESS)
        r.Value = r.Value + 1
    Next r

    lEnd = Timer

    Debug.Print "Duration = " & (lEnd - lStart) & " seconds"

End Sub

Sub LoopArrayAddOne()

    Dim varArray As Variant
    Dim var As Variant
    Dim lStart As Double
    Dim lEnd As Double

    lStart = Timer

    varArray = Range(strRANGE_ADDRESS).Value
    For Each var In varArray
        var = var + 1
    Next var
    Range(strRANGE_ADDRESS).Value = varArray

    lEnd = Timer

    Debug.Print "Duration = " & (lEnd - lStart) & " seconds"

End Sub

Results:

LoopRangeAddOne Duration = 2.2734375 seconds

LoopArrayAddOne Duration = 0.08203125 seconds

Which makes looping through an array 96.39% faster than through a loop.

Hope this helps :)