How can I get an XLL from a DLL?

Question

Can anybody give me some links or explain me how to build an XLL from a DLL (for Excel)?

I cannot use Visual C++, so I rely on CodeBlocks + GCC.

So far I have the source code and I obtained a DLL from it. How can I get the XLL from the DLL?

This seems to be the last step, but I cannot find complete documentation about it. Even on Microsoft web site there is not much about it.

I would like to have the step-by-step explanation to do this conversion...

Thank you.

Platform: 64 bit Windows 7, 32 bit Excel 2010, CodeBlocks, MinGW/GCC

Answer 1

It's pretty trivial really. Simply rename your DLL. That's right, just change the extension. A XLL file is nothing else than a DLL renamed to signify it's meant to be an Excel add-in. See step 11 of this tutorial.

Answer 2

An xll is a dll with certain well-know functions. When you open an xll in Excel it dynamically loads int xlAutoOpen(void) and calls that to register your user defined functions.

Save yourself a heap of trouble and just use http://xll.codeplex.com.