vb2clr

vb2clr

The helper class CLRHost for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) 7.0, providing access to CLR (.NET Framework) assemblies and classes.

To use .NET (formerly .NET Core), consider using vb2net.

Requirements

Visual Basic for Application 7.0 (included in Microsoft Office 2010 or higher)

• (not tested) To use on Visual Basic 6.0, rewrite LongPtr to Long and remove all PtrSafe specifiers.

Usage

1. Import CLRHost.cls and ExitHandler.bas into your VB/VBA project
2. Add Type Library reference 'Common Runtime Language Execution Engine' (maybe version 2.4) and 'mscorlib.dll'
3. Write your code using CLRHost class

Notes and Warnings

• You should release the CLRHost instance or call Terminate method when you finish using CLR.
  • Unexpected behavior may occur due to living CLR instances if you don't release or terminate them.
• If you pass True to TerminateOnExit parameter of CLRHost.Initialize, you must not stop the debugger when breaking or pausing the application.
  • The code in ExitHandler module cannot be run when stopped during pausing, and the application (including VBA host such as Excel) may cause crash.
• Encodings of VB files are Shift-JIS; if you have problem with encodings, check .utf8.* files, remove Japanese comments, and import them.

Example

Public Sub RegexSample()
    Dim host As New CLRHost
    Call host.Initialize(False)

    On Error Resume Next
    Dim asmSys As mscorlib.Assembly
    Set asmSys = host.CLRLoadAssembly("System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089")

    Dim cobjRegex As mscorlib.Object
    Set cobjRegex = host.CLRCreateObjectWithParams("System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex", _
        "([0-9])+")

    Dim cobjColl As mscorlib.Object
    Set cobjColl = host.CLRInvokeMethod(cobjRegex, "Matches", "10 20 50 1234 98765")

    Dim vMatch As Variant
    For Each vMatch In host.ToEnumerable(cobjColl)
        Dim cobjMatch As mscorlib.Object
        Set cobjMatch = vMatch
        Debug.Print "Matches: "; host.CLRProperty(cobjMatch, "Value")
        Set cobjMatch = Nothing
    Next vMatch
    vMatch = Empty
    Set cobjColl = Nothing
    Set cobjRegex = Nothing

    'Call host.Terminate
    Set host = Nothing
End Sub

More details

• (In Japanese) Using CLR(.NET) from VB

Author

jet (@jet2jet)

License

New BSD License (or The 3-Clause BSD License)