Forcing symbol export with MSVC

Question

I have a application and several plugins in DLL files. The plugins use symbols from the application via a export library. The application links in several static libraries a

Answer 1

What I tried out to solve this was this:

1. build a static library with function void afunction( int ).
2. build a dll, linked to static lib, exporting afunction.
3. build an exe, using the afunction symbol.

How? Since the linker can be told to export functions using the __declspec(dllexport) directive, a dll needs no more than declare a to-be-exported symbol thusly.

The lib has a header "afunction.h" and an accompanying cpp file containing the function body:

// stat/afunction.h
namespace static_lib { void afunction(int); }


// stat/afunction.cpp
#include "afunction.h"
namespace static_lib { void afunction(int){ } }

The dll has an include file "indirect.h", containing the declaration of the function to be exported. The dll has a link-time dependency to the static lib. (Linker options: Input/Additional Dependencies: "static_library.lib")

// dll/indirect.h
namespace static_lib {
  __declspec( dllexport ) void afunction(int);
}

The executable has only the indirectly included file:

#include 
int main() { static_lib::afunction(1); }

And guess what? It compiles, links and even runs!