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Microsoft Specific
The dllexport and dllimport storage-class attributes are Microsoft-specific extensions to the C and C++ languages. You can use them to export and import functions, data, and objects to or from a DLL.
__declspec( dllimport )declarator
__declspec( dllexport )declarator
These attributes explicitly define the DLL's interface to its client, which can be the executable file or another DLL. Declaring functions as dllexport eliminates the need for a module-definition (.def) file, at least with respect to the specification of exported functions. The dllexport attribute replaces the __export keyword.
If a class is marked __declspec(dllexport), any specializations of class templates in the class hierarchy are implicitly marked as __declspec(dllexport). It means that class templates are explicitly instantiated and the class's members must be defined.
dllexport of a function exposes the function with its decorated name, sometimes known as "name mangling". For C++ functions, the decorated name includes extra characters that encode type and parameter information. C functions or functions that are declared as extern "C" follow C name decoration rules. For more information on name decoration in C/C++ code, see Decorated names.
To export an undecorated name, you can link by using a Module Definition (.def) file that defines the undecorated name in an EXPORTS section. For more information, see EXPORTS. Another way to export an undecorated name is to use a #pragma comment(linker, "/export:alias=decorated_name") directive in the source code.
When you declare dllexport or dllimport, you must use extended attribute syntax and the __declspec keyword.
// Example of the dllimport and dllexport class attributes
__declspec( dllimport ) int i;
__declspec( dllexport ) void func();
Alternatively, to make your code more readable, you can use macro definitions:
#define DllImport __declspec( dllimport )
#define DllExport __declspec( dllexport )
DllExport void func();
DllExport int i = 10;
DllImport int j;
DllExport int n;
For more information, see:
END Microsoft Specific