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I am just starting with zeromq. I've got various platforms / languages all talking to each other nicely now and I must admit - it does a really good job.

The last piece of the jigsaw I'd like to do is (as title). Pretty simple, create a cell in excel along the lines of

=RTD(RealTimeServerProgID,ServerName,Topic1,[Topic2], ...)

and that just talks to the ServerName (ie host/port) and subscribes to updates to the topics as requested.

Now... I'm not that proud. I don't mind cobbling something together if there is a excel rtd -> (an other protocol) -> zeromq. Really I don't. But my c# and ms C++ is not that sharp so that's why I'm looking for any help from someone who has done it before. I've found various examples but none that integrate the pull from something like zeromq. I've even considered using the python bindings of zeromq with something like pyxll .. but I would be interested in finding out from people who have done it before which way would work the best. Thanks.

Richard Green
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  • I am afraid to get RTD function working, you need a registered COM (first parameter). There is no other way around. On the other hand - it is not complicated to build. – Juliusz Apr 12 '13 at 12:42
  • @Juliusz .. it's not that complicated to build if you've done it a few times but this is new to me. Would it be possible to register a generic com server and then do some clever stuff in the parameters ? – Richard Green Apr 12 '13 at 13:16
  • Should be straight forward with [Excel-DNA](http://exceldna.codeplex.com/) and [netmq](https://github.com/zeromq/netmq). – Steve-o Apr 13 '13 at 14:54

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got some experience with both RTD and zmq. I'm assuming you have already seen the RTD tutorials and know how to notify the client etc. If not it's pretty straightforward stuff.

If I were designing this I would just set up my zmq queue sockets for each subscription (per topic id) so they are polling (see the section on polling in this tutorial) on receive ready. You can set up an event handler which then retrieves the data, updates the cache that is read by excel during refresh, and then call notify on your excel callback.

Franchesca
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