1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

absolute path: A string that identifies the location of a file and that begins with a drive identifier and root directory or network share and ends with the complete file name. Examples are C:\Documents\Work\example.txt and \\netshare\Documents\Work\example.txt.

ActiveX control: A reusable software control, such as a check box or button, that uses ActiveX technology and provides options to users or runs macros or scripts that automate a task. See also ActiveX object.

ActiveX control library: A collection of controls that incorporate ActiveX technology and can be called by a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) project.

aggregatable server: A COM server that can be contained by another COM server and can allow its interfaces to be used as if they were defined by the containing server.

automation server: An application that exposes its functionality through COM interfaces to other applications, which are also called automation clients.

automation type library: A COM server that provides descriptions of the automation-compatible types that are defined or referenced in an automation scope.

big-endian: Multiple-byte values that are byte-ordered with the most significant byte stored in the memory location with the lowest address.

class identifier (CLSID): A GUID that identifies a software component; for instance, a DCOM object class or a COM class.

class module: A module that contains the definition for a new object. Each instance of a class creates a new object, and procedures that are defined in the module become properties and methods of the object.

code page: An ordered set of characters of a specific script in which a numerical index (code-point value) is associated with each character. Code pages are a means of providing support for character sets and keyboard layouts used in different countries. Devices such as the display and keyboard can be configured to use a specific code page and to switch from one code page (such as the United States) to another (such as Portugal) at the user's request.

compat version: A 32-bit number that identifies the Office Model version used by a VBA project.

compilation constant: A Microsoft Visual Basic identifier that is defined by using the #Const compiler directive or defined in the host application, and then used by other compiler directives to determine when or if certain blocks of Visual Basic code are compiled.

designer: A visual design surface for adding and arranging controls on a user form and writing code for those controls.

designer module: A VBA module that extends the methods and properties of an ActiveX control that has been registered with the project.

digest: The fixed-length output string from a one-way hash function that takes a variable-length input string and is probabilistically unique for every different input string. Also, a cryptographic checksum of a data (octet) stream.

document module: A type of VBA project item that specifies a module for embedded macros and programmatic access operations that are associated with a document.

embedded macro: A macro that is saved with a document.

extended type library: A component that contains Automation standard descriptions of exposed objects, properties, and methods that are implemented by an aggregatable server and supplemented by another Automation server.

floating-point number: A number that is represented by a mantissa and an exponent according to a given base. The mantissa is typically a value between "0" and "1". To find the value of a floating-point number, the base is raised to the power of the exponent, and the mantissa is multiplied by the result.

globally unique identifier (GUID): A term used interchangeably with universally unique identifier (UUID) in Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the value. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] have to be used for generating the GUID. See also universally unique identifier (UUID).

hash: A fixed-size result that is obtained by applying a one-way mathematical function, which is sometimes referred to as a hash algorithm, to an arbitrary amount of data. If the input data changes, the hash also changes. The hash can be used in many operations, including authentication and digital signing.

Help file: A file that contains the documentation for a specific product or technology.

Help topic identifier: A unique identifier for an article that contains Help content.

host extender: An Automation type that is provided by a host application to extend the functionality of an Automation server.

language code identifier (LCID): A 32-bit number that identifies the user interface human language dialect or variation that is supported by an application or a client computer.

license key: An array of bytes that enables access to a control according to the usage policies for that control.

little-endian: Multiple-byte values that are byte-ordered with the least significant byte stored in the memory location with the lowest address.

module: A collection of routines and data structures that performs a specific task or implements a specific abstract data type. Modules usually consist of two parts, a module header and a module body. A module header is a set of name/value attribute pairs that specify the linguistic characteristics of the module. A module body is the VBA source code, a set of declarations followed by procedures. VBA supports two types of modules, procedural modules and class modules.

multibyte character set (MBCS): An alternative to Unicode for supporting character sets, like Japanese and Chinese, that cannot be represented in a single byte. Under MBCS, characters are encoded in either one or two bytes. In two-byte characters, the first byte, or "lead" byte, signals that both it and the following byte are to be interpreted as one character. The first byte comes from a range of codes reserved for use as lead bytes. Which ranges of bytes can be lead bytes depends on the code page in use. For example, Japanese code page 932 uses the range 0x81 through 0x9F as lead bytes, but Korean code page 949 uses a different range.

OLE compound file: A form of structured storage, as described in [MS-CFB]. A compound file allows independent storages and streams to exist within a single file.

parent window: A primary window that provides window management functionality for a set of child windows.

procedural module: A collection of subroutines and functions.

project package: An item in a VBA project that specifies a Designer class that can be extended in a designer module.

reference: A link in a project to another project, a .NET Framework assembly, or a compatible Component Object Model (COM) library. Adding a reference to a project enables use of the referenced item in a project, but does not copy it to the current project folder.

relative path: A path that is implied by the active working directory or is calculated based on a specified directory. If users enter a command that refers to a file and the full path is not entered, the active working directory is the relative path of the referenced file.

right-to-left: A reading and display order that is optimized for right-to-left languages.

run length encoding: A lossless compression method that replaces a contiguous series (run) of identical values in a data stream with a pair of values that represent the length of the series and the value itself. For example, a data stream that contains 57 consecutive entries with the value "10" could replace them all with the shorter pair of values "57", "10".

SHA-1: An algorithm that generates a 160-bit hash value from an arbitrary amount of input data, as described in [RFC3174]. SHA-1 is used with the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) in the Digital Signature Standard (DSS), in addition to other algorithms and standards.

storage: An element of a compound file that is a unit of containment for one or more storages and streams, analogous to directories in a file system, as described in [MS-CFB].

stream: An element of a compound file, as described in [MS-CFB]. A stream contains a sequence of bytes that can be read from or written to by an application, and they can exist only in storages.

twiddled type library: A modified Automation type library in which all controls are marked as extensible. A twiddled type library is generated automatically by the Visual Basic Editor when a user adds one or more controls to a document.

twip: A unit of measurement that is used in typesetting and desktop publishing. It equals one-twentieth of a printer's point, or 1/1440 of an inch.

Unicode: A character encoding standard developed by the Unicode Consortium that represents almost all of the written languages of the world. The Unicode standard [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] provides three forms (UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32) and seven schemes (UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16 BE, UTF-16 LE, UTF-32, UTF-32 LE, and UTF-32 BE).

UTF-16: A standard for encoding Unicode characters, defined in the Unicode standard, in which the most commonly used characters are defined as double-byte characters. Unless specified otherwise, this term refers to the UTF-16 encoding form specified in [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] section 3.9.

VBA environment: An execution context that can host multiple VBA projects simultaneously and can be used to run those projects and source code, and track code dependencies.

VBA host application: An application that supports a VBA interpreter and can therefore run macros that are written in the VBA language.

VBA identifier: A VBA language token that is used to identify the name of an entity, such as a class, module, project, property, field, or variable.

VBA project: A collection of the modules, class modules, and user forms that are needed to create an application. Modules, class modules, and user forms can be imported into and exported from a project.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA): A macro-based programming language that derives from Visual Basic and can be used to customize and extend an application. Unlike Visual Basic, VBA code and macros can be run only from within a host application that supports VBA.

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.