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How to fix STM32 error: expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before __declspec(dllexport)

Problem:

When trying to compile a firmware for an STM32 microcontroller, you see a compiler error message like

stm32_declspec_error.cpp
myheader.h:23:12: error: expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before ‘(’ token
   23 |  __declspec(dllexport) int myfunc(

Solution

We previously explored the same problem for Linux platforms.

__declspec(dllexport) is a Windows-specific feature and not available on non-Windows platform such as the ARM embedded API platform (e.g. STM32). In order to fix it in a compatible way with both Windows and the STM32, add the following code either in a header that is included in every file containing __declspec(dllexport) or add it in each file where the error occurs:

declspec_compat.h
#ifdef __ARM_EABI__
#define __declspec(v)
#endif

This will basically ignore any __declspec() call on the preprocessor level.

By using __ARM_EABI__ specfically, the definition will not trigger for ARM platforms for Windows.

Check out similar posts by category: C/C++, GCC Errors, STM32