Calling Conventions: Unraveling the Differences Between stdcall and cdecl

Calling Conventions: stdcall vs. cdecl

When delving into the realm of function calls in C and C , programmers encounter two distinct calling conventions: stdcall and cdecl. To unravel the intricacies of these conventions, let's address some pressing questions:

1. Stack Cleanup for cdecl Functions

• The caller knows to clean up the stack after calling a cdecl function because the compiler has knowledge of its calling convention.
• At the call site, the caller is unaware of whether the function is a cdecl or stdcall variant.
• The compiler generates specific binary code that handles stack cleanup based on the calling convention of the function being invoked.

2. Mixing Calling Conventions

• It is generally not recommended to mix stdcall and cdecl calling conventions between functions.
• If a stdcall function calls a cdecl function (or vice versa), the compiler may complain or the resulting behavior may be unpredictable.

3. Performance Comparison

• There is no noteworthy performance difference between stdcall and cdecl calling conventions.

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