What / where is __scrt_common_main_seh?

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A third party library in my program is trying to call __scrt_common_main_seh by way of the Microsoft library msvcrt.lib, but is defined by some unknown library and therefore gives a linker error. I don't know what this function is supposed to do or where it is defined.

I looked online for this function, but did not find any clues except for general descriptions of what linker errors are.

I believe it might be doing some setup for win32 GUI applications. The library which defines it might be configured as project dependency by Visual Studio but my project is using Bazel.

winapi windows c++
1 Answers

Summary

For non-console applications having error error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol main referenced in function "int __cdecl __scrt_common_main_seh(void)" try adding linker flag /ENTRY:wWinMainCRTStartup or /ENTRY:WinMainCRTStartup

For console applications having that error, make sure to implement a main() function.

Details

This answer shows that __scrt_common_main_seh is normally called during mainCRTStartup which is the default entry point for windows console applications. __scrt_common_main_seh is then (indirectly) responsible for calling main().

My program did not have a main() function, which might have prevented the compiler from generating __scrt_common_main_seh (Just speculating. I am totally clueless about who defines __scrt_common_main_seh)

I did find, however, that the library I was linking against defined a wWinMain() function. So I tried adding the linker flag /ENTRY:wWinMainCRTStartup and the linker error went away.

user_3534070
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