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Asked: 2026-05-13T18:04:51+00:00

GCC has the ability to make a symbol link weakly via __attribute__((weak)) . I

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GCC has the ability to make a symbol link weakly via __attribute__((weak)). I want to use the a weak symbol in a static library that users can override in their application. A GCC style weak symbol would let me do that, but I don’t know if it can be done with visual studio.

Does Visual Studio offer a similar feature?

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  1. Editorial Team

    MSVC++ has __declspec(selectany) which covers part of the functionality of weak symbols: it allows you to define multiple identical symbols with external linkage, directing the compiler to choose any one of several available. However, I don’t think MSVC++ has anything that would cover the other part of weak symbol functionality: the possibility to provide “replaceable” definitions in a library.

    This, BTW, makes one wonder how the support for standard replaceable ::operator new and ::operator delete functions works in MSVC++.

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