fabianoliver / vbprojectparser

.Net library to extract/decompress/parse the VBProject.bin from binary Excel files. Allows to e.g. read VBA code from Excel files without any dependency on Excel itself.

VbProjectParser

C# library to read Vba code / VBA Project information from VBProject.bin or regular Excel files. It has no requirements on MS Excel being installed on machine.

This project demonstrates how to read basic information from VBProject.bin binary files, e.g. to extract VBA Code & module information as plain text.

It contains an integration project with OpenXML, so the same can be done for regular Excel files without manually having to extract the VBProject files. As a result, it is possible to e.g. read VBA Code from Excel files without opening these in Excel (or even having Excel installed on the machine).

All code is full C#. This project is work in progress, please report issues on the Github issue tracker.

vbprojectparser's Issues

Unable to read VBA if contains a PROJECTCOMPATVERSION record.

Newer versions of Vbproject code have a PROJECTCOMPATVERSION record that the current projectinformation code doesn't check for an will fail to read in the vba. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_file_formats/ms-ovba/ed5d7ede-5d7d-4645-bba3-ddfd9bdc76ed

Minimal fix for this is to check for the existence of the record before checking for the PROJECTLCID. Another fix could be to instead of the code relying on the records in a specific order is to loop checking the record type and then calling the appropriate code based on the record type. Could also then skip unknown record types.

I'd also recommend upgrading the code to .net 4.8 since the .net built against is out of support
@fabianoliver - I can do separate pull requests for handing the projectcompatversion record and upgrading to .net
4.8 depending on your feedback on the best way to approach.

REFERENCEPROJECT validating version against current Project causes exception

The REFERENCEPROJECT validates that the version of the referenced project matches the current project version with the code.

REFERENCEPROJECT.cs
[ValueMustEqualMember("ProjectInformation.VersionRecord.VersionMajor")]
public readonly UInt32 MajorVersion;

    [ValueMustEqualMember("ProjectInformation.VersionRecord.VersionMinor")]
    public readonly UInt16 MinorVersion;

The referenced project is not required to have the same MajorVersion and MinorVersion and the code results in a validation error.

The fix could be to just remove the ValueMustEqualMember.

Reflection has already validated the values are UInt16 and I cannot think of any additional validation that could be performed here.

where is TestAbnfObject？

ProjectReferenceTests.cs

var x = new TestAbnfObject();

where is TestAbnfObject??

Crash if CompressionContainer contains more than one CompressedChunk

When a file is read with multiple CompressedChunks an exception will occur:
System.FormatException: 'Signature byte expected 0x03,

This is caused by the size of data to be read from the CompressedChunk the CompressionContainer is incorrect.
From: CompressedChunkData.cs, line#47
var size = Math.Min(header.CompressedChunkSize, Data.Length - Data.i);

The header.CompressedChunkSize is being used as the remaining bytes to be read in from the stream. Since the first two bytes have already been read from the chunk the proper calculation is:
var size = Math.Min(header.CompressedChunkSize -2, Data.Length - Data.i);

MSFT documents how to read the chunk at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_file_formats/ms-ovba/3d5ea4df-e8a5-4079-a454-9595b840525f

Parser will crash if VBA contains REFERENCEORIGINAL record

If the project contains a REFERENCEORIGINAL record VBAParser will crash on load.

This is because the as part of the REFERENCEORIGINAL record persisted it also has REFERENCECONTROL data as part of the record that immediately follows the REFERENCEORIGINAL data that currently isn't being read.

documented at:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/office_file_formats/ms-ovba/3ba66994-8c7a-4634-b2da-f9331ace6686

Feature Request: Be able to open a VBAProject in a Word file

I'd like to be able to open a Word document's VBA stream. Currently the code only supports Excel in the VbProject class.

I see two possible options for this.

1. Make an overload VbProjectWord class that will inherit and keep the public signature of VbProject except will work with a Word File.

2. Add a static on the VbProject class such as VbProject.LoadWordDocumentVbProject(string pathToWordFile) that would open the Word File.

I think option #1 fits in better with the current code when looking but I'm also not a fan of doing things such as opening files and other expected failures within a class constructor. It may also be nice if think in future would have app specific methods that would make sense on the VbProject class level.

Option #2 would have a static called but it is confusing with the current class that also has a constructors for both WorkbookPart and another for the fileFullPath which it assumes is to an Excel file.

I'm leaning toward coding up option #1 and then can review what looks like.

thoughts?

Exception Parsing ProjectStream if it contains more than one entry under [Host Extender Info]

An InvalidOperationException will occur when parsing a ProjectStream contains more than one [Host Extender Info] or if the entry libname does not start with VBE.

Example of [HostExtenderInfo] that will reproduce both issues:

[Host Extender Info]
&H00000001={3832D640-CF90-11CF-8E43-00A0C911005A};VBE;&H00000000
&H00000002={00020818-0000-0000-C000-000000000046};Excel8.0;&H00000000