C or C++

I get quite a lot of correspondence around xlls. These are mainly coded in C or C++, and many people are not totally clear on the difference. Language purist are going to hate this, but here goes:

C is like modules in VBA, C++ is like classes.

If all your VBA is in classes (why would you do that in Excel??) then C++ will probably make more sense to you.

If most of your VBA is in modules then plain (or should that be pure?) C will suit you better.

If you have some monster horrible stuff to code, then the OO side of C++ will probably give it the edge, or if you have existing C++ resources you want to expose to Excel, C++ may be better.

But for many VBA devs just wanting moderately simple functions to perform sensibly C is probably the best bet.

Thats a bit of an issue as almost all the frameworks, and tools for writing xlls, are aimed at exposing Excel to C++ devs. None are aimed at helping VBA devs understand this fast xll interface, That what I intend to correct over the next few months.

Excel has an API that is accessible from C (cunningly called the C API), and just about accessible from C++ (If you get it to pretend it is C code).

My advice is the think C when thinking about xlls, that is after all what most of the windows API dlls we use are coded in.

cheers

Simon

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