• New C++ Student (2/2) Jul 16 2005 ok heres a newbie question - Im new ti C++ I have the .lib file and the ...
• Walter (8/10) Jul 16 2005 file
• mx0 seznam.cz (21/23) Jul 25 2005 - first, you will (probably) need the same compiler (and maybe the same ...

New C++ Student <New_member pathlink.com> writes:

ok heres a newbie question - Im new ti C++ I have the .lib file and the .h file
- how do I make a dll file from the .lib file???

"Walter" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:

"New C++ Student" <New_member pathlink.com> wrote in message
news:dbbcvf$1s9j$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 ok heres a newbie question - Im new ti C++ I have the .lib file and the .h

file
 - how do I make a dll file from the .lib file???

You need to pick up the book "Advanced Windows" by Jeffrey Richter. Here's a
link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572315482/classicempire

What DLLs are and how to program them is not something that can be explained
in a few sentences. Richter's book has everything you need to know about
DLLs in it.

mx0 seznam.cz writes:

In article <dbbcvf$1s9j$1 digitaldaemon.com>, New C++ Student says...
ok heres a newbie question - Im new ti C++ I have the .lib file and the .h file
- how do I make a dll file from the .lib file???

- first, you will (probably) need the same compiler (and maybe the same version
of that compiler) as in the .lib was generated

- it will AFAIK be possible to build the dll from that lib the same way as
building from objects (because the lib are basically only objects joined
together)

- you will need to export symbols from dll some way (see
__declspec(dllexport/dllimport) in e.g. MSVC, I don't know about dmc, while I
didn't build any dll in dmc yet), so you may need to modify the header, or use
def file to export symbols from dll

- you will not need to rebuild the lib in most cases, AFAIK

- but, you must really take care about calling convention (__cdecl, __pascal,
__stdcall etc.), that is very important (C-symbols are exported from dlls mostly
in __cdecl convention, but you can specify the calling convention in the header)
- if you want to use the lib without rebuild, you have to use the same calling
convention as the compiler used to build the lib (you may need to specify the
convention explicitly, especially in the case you use
__declspec(dllexport/dllimport) and/or .def file, the convention is not
specified and the compiler uses default calling convention other than __cdecl)

- inline methods and templates can cause problems (multiply defined or missing
symbols when linking .dll with .exe)