Passing reference to STL vector over dll boundary

Question

I have a nice library for managing files that needs to return specific lists of strings. Since the only code I\'m ever going to use it with is going to be C++ (and Java but

Answer 1

The memory is allocated in the executable and passed as a reference to the dll function, values are added via the reference, and then those are processed and finally deallocated back in the executable.

Adding values if there is no space left (capacity) means a reallocation, so the old will be deallocated & a new will be allocated. That'll be done by the library's std::vector::push_back function, which will use the library's memory allocator.

Other than that, you've got the obvious compile-settings-must-match-exactly and of course they are kind of compiler-specifics dependant. You've most likely got to keep them synced in terms of compiles.