[boost] BOOST_DLLEXPORT in serialization

From: Damien Fisher (damienf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-09-17 07:14:13

I just tried compiling some source code in Microsoft VS 2005, with
/clr turned on.  It turned up the following error:

boost/serialization/void_cast_fwd.hpp(26) : error C3389:
__declspec(dllexport) cannot be used with /clr:pure or /clr:safe

It appears that BOOST_DLLEXPORT, defined in
boost/serialization/force_include.hpp, is always defined to
__declspec(export).  This is surely incorrect, is it not?

The reason I bring this up is that it resolved a mysterious build
"issue" I'd been having ever since I started using serialization
(which occurs with native code generation on VC++):  even though I
only used serialization in an executable (i.e., the source got
compiled to a .exe), the compiler was also producing an import library
and export file, as it would for a DLL!  I am guessing that this is
due to the fact that functions are being "exported" from the
executable via BOOST_DLLEXPORT.  Sure enough, if I removed
serialization from my source code, the exp and lib files disappeared.

While this might only be slightly annoying, I can't help but think
that the semantics of __declspec(dllexport) within a non-DLL are
undefined at best.  I don't know enough about the serialization
library to understand this problem in enough detail to offer an
alternative.