Excel Add-in Development in C/C++: Applications in ... - F9

8 Excel Add-in Development in C/C++1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONSThe early chapters are intended to give just enough Excel and VBA background for thelater chapters. There are literally dozens of books about Excel and VBA ranging fromthose whose titles are intended to coerce even the most timid out of the shadows, tothose with titles designed to make them a must-buy for MBA students, such as ‘EssentialPower Excel Tips For Captains Of Industry And Entrepreneurs’. (At the time of writing,this was a fictitious book title.) There are, of course, many well-written and comprehensivereference books on Excel and VBA. There are also a number of good specialist booksfor people who need to know how best to use Excel for a specific discipline, such asstatistical analysis, for example.The book is primarily focused on writing add-in worksheet functions. The reasons forthis are gone into in later sections, such as section 2.8 Commands versus functions inExcel on page 19. One reason is that commands often rely on the creation of user-defineddialogs, which is a task far better suited to VBA. Even if the functionality that yourcommand needs is already written in C/C++ code in a DLL, it can still easily be accessedfrom VB. Another reason is that, in general, commands do not have the same speedof execution requirements as worksheet functions – one of the main reasons for using aC/C++ DLL for functions.Commands are covered to a certain extent, nevertheless. They can be a useful part ofa well planned interface to a DLL. Knowing how to create and access them without theuse of VB is important. Knowing how to create menus and menu items is important ifyou want DLL commands to be accessed in a seamless way. Chapter 8 Accessing ExcelFunctionality Using the C API on page 169 covers these topics.The Excel COM interface is largely beyond the scope of this book, mainly to keep thebook focused on the writing of high performance worksheet function, which COM doesnot help with. The other main reason is that if you need functionality that COM providesand the C API does not, for example, access to certain Excel objects, you are probablybetter off using VBA.This book is not intended to be industry-specific or profession-specific except in the finalchapter where applications of particular interest in certain areas of finance are discussed.It should be noted that the book is not intended to be a finance text book and deliberatelyavoids laborious explanations of things that finance professionals will know perfectlywell. Nor are examples intended to necessarily cover all of what is a very broad field.It is hoped that readers will see enough parallel with their own field to be able to applyearlier sections of the book to their own problems without too much consternation.