where are windows API functions defined?

when you need to use a function you include a header file b开发者_StackOverflowut wheres the function code is defined?

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Dave, the code lives in the various and many DLL files in your Windows\system32 directory.

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The actual code that implements the Win-32 API are defined in various DLLs on your system. These DLLs have names like kernel32.dll, comctl32.dll etc. You will find them in C:\Windows\System32.

What generally happens is that you link your code with kernel32.lib etc. that have a little code to dynamically load the DLLs when your program starts. This allows Win32 API functions to directly call into the DLLS.

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Well as explained above you are in the hands of microsoft. You can always look at the msdn http://msdn.microsoft.com. For most API functions you can find some information at the bottom. For most function you get from there:

Minimum supported client
Minimum supported server
Header
Library
DLL
Unicode and ANSI names