__stdcall

OverviewHow Do I

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. 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.

END Microsoft Specific

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