Constructors for VB.NET Modules

Did you know that you can have a constructor on a module? I first got the notion to try this after thinking about static constructors in C#. In C#, you can do something like this:

class Class1
  {
      private static int _magicNumber;

      static Class1()
      {
          _magicNumber = 4;
      }
  }

So the next thing to try was to test this out in VB.NET:

Module Module1

Sub New()
   Debug.WriteLine("New")
End Sub

Public Sub Test()
   Debug.WriteLine("Test")
End Sub

Public Sub Test2()
   Debug.WriteLine("Test2")
End Sub
End Module

Running this and calling the methods Test / Test2 (in that order) yields this:

New
Test
Test2

So as you might expect, the construct only gets called once, but is called before any members are accessed in the module. Handy!