VBA - Convert Long Hexadecimal to Long Decimal String

So with cryptography one may have to work with very long numbers that bust the maximum size of VBA intrinsic types. What is needed is sometimes informally called BigInteger and formally called Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic Now one could go for a whole library but for a narrow use case then sometimes a code snippett does the job.

The following code is based on a StackOverflow question Convert a “big” Hex number (string format) to a decimal number (string format) without BigInteger Class. The answer was given in C# but converted to VBA for this blog.

Function HexToDecimal(ByVal sHex As String) As String

    Dim dec() As Long
    ReDim dec(0 To 0) As Long
    
    Dim lCharLoop As Long
    For lCharLoop = 1 To Len(sHex)
        
        Dim char As String * 1
        char = Mid$(sHex, lCharLoop, 1)
        
        Dim carry As Long
        carry = Val("&h" & char)
        
        Dim i As Long
        For i = 0 To UBound(dec)
            Dim lVal As Long
            lVal = dec(i) * 16 + carry
            dec(i) = lVal Mod 10
            carry = lVal \ 10
        Next i
    
        While (carry > 0)
            ReDim Preserve dec(0 To UBound(dec) + 1) As Long
            dec(UBound(dec)) = carry Mod 10
            carry = carry \ 10
        Wend
    Next
    
    For lCharLoop = UBound(dec) To LBound(dec) Step -1
        Dim sDecimal As String
        sDecimal = sDecimal & Chr$(48 + dec(lCharLoop))
    
    Next
    
    HexToDecimal = sDecimal

End Function

Private Sub TestHexToDecimal()

    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("F") = "15"
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("4") = CStr(Val("&H4"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("10") = CStr(Val("&H10"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("20") = CStr(Val("&H20"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("30") = CStr(Val("&H30"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("40") = CStr(Val("&H40"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("44") = CStr(Val("&H44"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("FF") = "255"
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("FFF") = "4095"
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("443") = CStr(Val("&H443"))
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("443C1") = "279489"
    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("443C1CE20DFD592FB374D829B894BBE5") = "90699627342249584016268008583970733029"

    Debug.Assert HexToDecimal("EC851A69B8ACD843164E10CFF70CF9E86DC2FEE3CF6F374B43C854E3342A2F1AC3E30" & _
    "C741CC41E679DF6D07CE6FA3A66083EC9B8C8BF3AF05D8BDBB0AA6CB3EF8C5BAA2A5" & _
    "E531BA9E28592F99E0FE4F95169A6C63F635D0197E325C5EC76219B907E4EBDCD401FB1" & _
    "986E4E3CA661FF73E7E2B8FD9988E753B7042B2BBCA76679") = _
    "1660899461379861685353688491843017402046137536931563604625752175601309049219" & _
    "5397632483978280801827700029602706087374780329179786968451649489474169926767" & _
    "4246881622658654267131250470956587908385447044319923040838072975636163137212" & _
    "8878242485755103411040294617585948551591743298921259938445664971761026682621" & _
    "39513"

End Sub