Is there anyway to export a function (not a class)

Question

I want to create an ActiveX DLL from Visual Basic 6 from which I would like to call some public functions. I will call this DLL only from VB6. However, it seems that only classes get exported. Is there any workaround?

I know there is a way to create DLLs from VB6 with standard WINAPI functions. This is not what I want, because I would have to type thousands of Declare instructions, and I would lose the dynamic linking so I don't need to recompile applications when changing the DLL.

I will state my problem just in case anyone has a better idea. I've got a bunch of relatively big projects, each with its own code, and then I have a lot of "Generic" code which is used in several projects. It's an annoyance to add every file to each new project, and having to recompile all of them for each minor change. So I thought of creating a DLL, so I would just "Add reference" when I begin a new project, and don't have to worry anymore about recompiling (at least for minor changes) but I raged when discovered that only classes got exported.

I wouldn't mind to reorganize the code in classes, but it's an overwhelming task: there are some 10 years of 3-4 people code, so it's not something I can do overnight.

Answer 1

Yes, it's easy.

1. Put all the utility routines in special classes in the DLL.
2. Set the Instancing property of those classes as GlobalMultiUse.
3. Build the DLL.
4. In your client project (with a reference to the DLL) you will now be able to call the functions and subroutines as if they were in a module in that project. You won't need to create any objects.

You can read more in the VB6 manual.