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FSharp Standalone Assemblies

F# assemblies can be compiled with a -standalone switch that embeds the F# runtime into the assembly, and allows it to run without requiring additional assemblies.

There is a bug in Excel-DNA v0.30 that prevents such assemblies to be loaded by Excel-DNA. The workaround is to:

  • mark functions and macros that are to be exported with explicit [<ExcelFunction>] or [<ExcelCommand>] attributes, and
  • set the 'ExplicitExports' flag on the ExternalLibrary tag in the .dna file: <ExternalLibrary Path="..." ExplicitExports="true" />.

With these changes, F# libraries can be compiled with the standalone switch, and used as Excel-DNA add-ins without requiring additional F# libraries on the client.