Exporting a struct from a DLL

[masnu]

Hi guys, Is it possible to export a structure from a dll without including the header file where the structure is define? For example:

/*-------------------------
mydllheader.h
------------------------------*/

extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) struct MyStruct
{

 MyStruct()
 {
     a = 0;
     b = 0;
 }

 int a;
 int b;

}

Instead of including mydllheader.h I want to do the following:

/*-------------------------
myimportheader.h
------------------------------*/

extern "C" __declspec(dllimport) struct MyStruct

I would like to use myimportheader.h in my projects that use the dll that way I can hide my structure implementation from the user. Is that possible? Thanks.

[Lost User]

You could do it this way but what is the point? If you hide everything from the user then what purpose is served by the structure? A better solution is to create a class that has methods but hides all variables and implementation details.

txtspeak is the realm of 9 year old children, not developers. Christian Graus

[Avi Berger]

Not if the user of your dll creates instances of MyStruct itself. It needs to be a complete type if the user of your DLL is to create instances of it. If you delegate all creation/destruction of MyStruct instances to the dll, you can achieve something like this. I've seen this sort of thing done with void *'s for the interface. I don't know if you could do this with a pointer to an incomplete type. If not, you could get a sort of type safety by wrapping the void * in a struct of its own with the definition of that struct exposed to the consuming application.

Please do not read this signature.