How to export a C++ class from a dll? [duplicate]

Answer 1

As I remember, normally, you export not a class but a factory function that creates a new instance of class and returns a pointer. The class declaration resides in header file for compile time.

I may be wrong about the example (that was long ago), but here how it should approximately look like:

Header file (.h):

class MyClass { ... };

extern "C" DLL_API MyClass* createMyClass();

Source file (.cpp):

DLL_API MyClass* createMyClass() {
    return new MyClass();
}

Define MY_DLL_EXPORT while compiling, see foraidt's answer example.