C++ Visual Studio: linking using pragma comment

c++ visual-studio-2010 static-linking dynamic-linking
user1612986 picture user1612986 · Oct 10, 2012 · Viewed 35.9k times · Source

I came across a piece of code which uses #pragma comment(lib, "libraryname").

Why this type of usage as opposed to just linking the library from the properties menu? In what situations is this usage called for? I am in windows using C++ Visual Studio 2010.

It would be nice to see an example which calls for this type of usage.

Answer

Alex F picture Alex F · Oct 10, 2012

The library writer can place a #pragma comment(lib, ...) command in the public header (.h) file. In this case, the client doesn't need to add this library to the linker dependencies list. By including an h-file in the program, the client is automatically linked to the required library.

Related questions

PDB 'vc100.pdb' was not found with

I have downloaded the FreeImage source code and done a static build myself for X64 MT DLL. Everything works fine, except when I use link in the freeimage.lib file I get a lot of annoying linker warnings which I …

Read More
Cannot compile a simple Qt program in MT mode as opposed to MD in Visual Studio 2010

I'm trying to compile using MTd in Visual Studio 2010 instead of MDd (so that the dll's are packaged in and i won't need to distribute them with my exe), but I keep getting "fatal error LNK1169: one or more multiply …

Read More
Linking library without a header file?

I'm attempting to link a static library in C++ using Visual Studio 2010. Trouble is, the library (and accompanying header ) have a lot of MFC objects in them. I would like to call one of the library's functions without recompiling my …

Read More