Extracting VBA from a Excel spreadsheet

Question

Is there a clean way to extract the VBA from a spreadsheet and store it in a repository.

The spreadsheets hardly ever change but the VBA does. Storing the whole spreadsheet in the repository makes it difficult to do diffs across the different VBA revisions to see what code has changed and who changed it.

We use VBA 6.5 / Excel 2003.

Answer 1

Previous versions of Excel and Access (prior to 2003) supported VBA Source Code Version Control via an add-in. I have used this very effectively in Office 2000.

Visual SourceSafe (VSS) support for VBA was dropped with the release of Office 2003, but the add-in that was shipped with Office XP Developer apparently works with Office 2003.

Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

• Using Visual SourceSafe with Documents and VBA Code

• Using the Visual SourceSafe Add-In with the Visual Basic Environment

Failing that you can use this code to extract the VBA code (from here but it was missing the final object cleanups). Read the webpage for caveats:

option explicit

Const vbext_ct_ClassModule = 2
Const vbext_ct_Document = 100
Const vbext_ct_MSForm = 3
Const vbext_ct_StdModule = 1

Main

Sub Main
    Dim xl
    Dim fs
    Dim WBook
    Dim VBComp
    Dim Sfx
    Dim ExportFolder

    If Wscript.Arguments.Count <> 1 Then
        MsgBox "As the only argument, give the FULL path to an XLS file to extract all the VBA from it."
    Else

        Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
        Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

        xl.Visible = true

        Set WBook = xl.Workbooks.Open(Trim(wScript.Arguments(0)))

        ExportFolder = WBook.Path & "\" & fs.GetBaseName(WBook.Name)

        fs.CreateFolder(ExportFolder)

        For Each VBComp In WBook.VBProject.VBComponents
            Select Case VBComp.Type
                Case vbext_ct_ClassModule, vbext_ct_Document
                    Sfx = ".cls"
                Case vbext_ct_MSForm
                    Sfx = ".frm"
                Case vbext_ct_StdModule
                    Sfx = ".bas"
                Case Else
                    Sfx = ""
            End Select
            If Sfx <> "" Then
                On Error Resume Next
                Err.Clear
                VBComp.Export ExportFolder & "\" & VBComp.Name & Sfx
                If Err.Number <> 0 Then
                    MsgBox "Failed to export " & ExportFolder & "\" & VBComp.Name & Sfx
                End If
                On Error Goto 0
            End If
        Next

        xl.Quit

        Set fs = Nothing
        Set xl = Nothing

    End If
End Sub

Answer 2

Couple of similar questions:

• Multiple developers in a VBA project

• Exporting VBA code from Multiple Excel documents to put into version control

Answer 3

The other answers to this question address it pretty well, but if you're just starting to write the code, look into VSTO. It provides managed code for Office, and best of all, you can even do it in C# or whatever .NET language strikes your fancy. It also works with Excel 2003, which is a bonus, in your case.

Answer 4

You already have a great answer, but allow me to add an aside.

It is quite possible to keep all of your VBA code in a spreadsheet seperate from the spreadsheet(s) that contains the data. If you do this it might make your comparisons easier.

Answer 5

Answered the same thing in another topic. Another alternative for you to try.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/608872/exporting-vba-code-from-multiple-excel-documents-to-put-into-version-control/1453989#1453989

(is there a way to cross-link these topics and/or answers?)