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Question:

Performance Question: ActiveX vs Functional DLL?

Feb 28 '13 at 09:27

I have to encrypt several fields on thousands of records in a Visual FoxPro table. I would like to know whether the program would run faster using Declare DLL and calling the function using the C++ component or to use the ActiveX component and call a method.

In general I am also wondering whether calling an ActiveX method is slower than calling a function in the C++ component.


Answer

It's a certainty that calling the function in the DLL is faster than calling the same function within the ActiveX. The only question is whether it's significantly faster, or whether the difference is negligible. My feeling is that it would be a negligible difference, except for the case when a large amount of data is passed in the arguments. For example, a very long string argument, or a large amount of binary data passed in a Variant.

By the way, Chilkat does not yet actually offer a function-based DLL, although it will be coming soon. (see the answer to this question: http://www.chilkatforum.com/questions/2639/possible-to-use-chilkat-with-xamarin-monotouch-app )