stdHTTP vs VBA-Web vs WinHttp

[6DiegoDiego9]

I'm in the process of comparing stdHTTP vs VBA-Web vs standard WinHttp to decide what library to use for http communications in VBA.

What are the main advantages and disadvantages of stdHTTP compared to the other two?

[sancarn]

stdHTTP

Pros

• stdHTTP is modelled to be close to JavaScript fetch()
• stdHTTP is built from simple stdVBA components e.g. auth is built from a standard stdICallable rather than a unique interface unusable by anything else. Maybe this has downsides too? Not sure.
  • getting used to stdICallable will help you with other aspects of stdVBA library.
  • Authenticators are quite simple to understand as a result
• stdHTTP has 1 dependency, while VBA-Web has 5-6. WinHTTP has none, but you can't autoproxy.
• Opinion: stdHTTP is more comprehensible for those new to VBA in my opinion.

Cons

• Confusing intellisense due to everything being baked into 1 class.
• Requires some knowledge of stdICallable and how to generate them with either stdCallback or stdLambda, unless you implement it yourself. I do think this is an easier interface to work with than IWebAuthenticator though...

Example

const URL as string = "https://www.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/{userId}/messages/{messageId}"
Dim q as string: q = URL
q = replace(q, "{userId}", whatever)
q = replace(q, "{messageId}", whatever)
set o = stdHTTP.Create(q)

VBA-Web

Pros

• VBA-Web has great intellisense features due to using 4+ seperate classes / interfaces
• VBA-Web good structure for large web-only projects.
• AddUrlSegment is a simple yet neat feature
• Good where authentication has already been defined by the community

Cons

• A lot of clutter from large number of dependencies
• Authentication can be tricky when it hasn't already been defined by the community

Example

Function LoadMessage(MessageId As String) As Dictionary
    Dim GmailClient as New WebClient
    GmailClient.BaseUrl = "https://www.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/"
    Dim Request As New WebRequest
    Request.Resource = "users/{userId}/messages/{messageId}"
    Request.AddUrlSegment "userId", "me"
    Request.AddUrlSegment "messageId", MessageId
    Dim Response As WebResponse
    Set Response = GmailClient.Execute(Request)
End Function

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My personal opinion is i'd rather have something like stdHTTP as a baseline which, if I wanted to, I could expand into a client/request/response architecture like that used in VBA-Web as a light wrapper. But VBA-Web feels like overkill for most small projects. But I am the library author so may well be bias.

[6DiegoDiego9]

Thanks for the info!

As far as I understand, the following short form works with VBA-Web, as long as the classes are set to be predeclared like stdHTTP:

const URL$ = "https://www.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/{userId}/messages/{messageId}"
Dim q$: q = URL
q = replace(q, "{userId}", whatever)
q = replace(q, "{messageId}", whatever)
WebRequest.Resource = q
set o = WebClient.Execute(WebRequest)

Please correct me if I'm wrong

[sancarn]

It's entirely possible, haven't seen that in any of the documented examples so difficult to know if that works or not without testing it