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Why does my Visual C++ .exe project build create .lib and .exp files?

Answer 1

+1 A:

This is normal if one or more functions is/are exported from your executable.

Jerry Coffin 2010-05-12 16:18:13

What does it mean, to export functions from an executable?

neuviemeporte 2010-05-12 16:48:55

Just like you export functions from a DLL, you can also export them from an executable.

Jerry Coffin 2010-05-12 16:55:38

I can't see how my executable is exporting any functions. It's contained in main() in its entirety.

neuviemeporte 2010-05-12 17:21:11

Answer 2

+1 A:

It's a bit late but, maybe someone else could find useful this hint.

BTW I'm not a c++ guru...

In my solution i have 3 projects. One is a dll project, the others are two Win32 app projects referencing the dll project.

Usually, with your dll built, you have also some others file generated (.exp, .lib) also for the NON dll projects. This can occour when you include a .h file of the dll project, into the app project, which contains a class marked with __declspec(dllexport).

To avoid the linker think your are trying to include some .h files to "export" use a conditional expression to define your _declspec macro.

Example:

#if defined(_DO_NOT_EXPORT)
#define DllExport  
#else
#define DllExport __declspec(dllexport)
#endif

Ok, let's say you have a MyClass.h in your dll project.

in your .h file you could have now:

class DllExport MyClass {
 ...
}

When you want to include this .h file into a NON dll project, you have simply to define the _DO_NOT_EXPORT condition

#define _DO_NOT_EXPORT
#include "MyClass.h"

John 2010-10-24 11:50:59

Thanks a lot for this input!

neuviemeporte 2010-10-26 12:54:17

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Why does my Visual C++ .exe project build create .lib and .exp files?

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