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__stdcall

 

The latest version of this topic can be found at __stdcall.

Microsoft Specific**

The __stdcall calling convention is used to call Win32 API functions. The callee cleans the stack, so the compiler makes vararg functions __cdecl. Functions that use this calling convention require a function prototype.

Syntax

  
return-type __stdcall function-name[(argument-list)]  

Remarks

The following list shows the implementation of this calling convention.

Element Implementation
Argument-passing order Right to left.
Argument-passing convention By value, unless a pointer or reference type is passed.
Stack-maintenance responsibility Called function pops its own arguments from the stack.
Name-decoration convention An underscore (_) is prefixed to the name. The name is followed by the at sign (@) followed by the number of bytes (in decimal) in the argument list. Therefore, the function declared as int func( int a, double b ) is decorated as follows: _func@12
Case-translation convention None

The /Gz compiler option specifies __stdcall for all functions not explicitly declared with a different calling convention.

Functions declared using the __stdcall modifier return values the same way as functions declared using __cdecl.

On ARM and x64 processors, __stdcall is accepted and ignored by the compiler; on ARM and x64 architectures, by convention, arguments are passed in registers when possible, and subsequent arguments are passed on the stack.

For non-static class functions, if the function is defined out-of-line, the calling convention modifier does not have to be specified on the out-of-line definition. That is, for class non-static member methods, the calling convention specified during declaration is assumed at the point of definition. Given this class definition,

struct CMyClass {  
   void __stdcall mymethod();  
};  

this

void CMyClass::mymethod() { return; }  

is equivalent to this

void __stdcall CMyClass::mymethod() { return; }  

Example

In the following example, use of __stdcall results in all WINAPI function types being handled as a standard call:

// Example of the __stdcall keyword  
#define WINAPI __stdcall  
// Example of the __stdcall keyword on function pointer  
typedef BOOL (__stdcall *funcname_ptr)(void * arg1, const char * arg2, DWORD flags, ...);  

See Also

Argument Passing and Naming Conventions
Keywords