What is Different Between "MFC DLL" and "Console Application DLL"?-CodePudding

What is the difference between creating a MFC DLL from Visual Studio wizard and creating C Console Application and changing the configuration type to DLL instead of .exe?

CodePudding user response：

According to Creating an MFC DLL Project it states:

An MFC DLL is a binary file that acts as a shared library of functions that can be used simultaneously by multiple applications. The easiest way to create an MFC DLL project is to use the MFC DLL Wizard.

This article Kinds of DLLs also states:

Using Visual Studio, you can build Win32 DLLs in C or C that do not use the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) library. You can create a non-MFC DLL project with the Win32 Application Wizard.

The MFC library itself is available, in either static link libraries or in a number of DLLs, with the MFC DLL Wizard. If your DLL is using MFC, Visual Studio supports three different DLL development scenarios ...

I believe the above explains the difference:

One version of the DLL exposes the MFC library.
One version does not.

That is my understanding.

Other related article: Create C/C DLLs in Visual Studio

CodePudding user response：

An Application (executable) is a module that can be run. It contains one entrypoint, the main() (console) or WinMain() (windows GUI) function. A running instance of an executable is called a "process" in Win32.

A DLL is a library, intended for use by other applications. It is loaded at runtime - "dynamically", hence the name. DLLs contain no main entrypoint, instead they "export" functions or even classes and data. Lacking a main entrypoint, DLLs cannot be run stand-alone, instead they are "loaded into a process's (application's) address-space". The process can use their exported items. It is a good way to implement commonly used operations, for example a company's "development environment" or "foundation" - SDKs are typically implemented as DLLs.

MFC is a C library containing GUI (and other) classes and functions, largely (but not exclusively) wrapping Win32 objects. An application or DLL can be using the MFC library, or not.

As for your question, creating a console application and then changing it to DLL makes no sense. The Wizard will create a main() function, which you will have to manually remove. And finally you will have what, a normal DLL... You can simply create a DLL from the start, whether it will be using MFC or not.