Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Kunal Shah — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:58:01 GMT

Midl giving a forward declaration error is perfectly valid in the above scenario. The main idl file has a forward declaration for "interface MyInterface" which is actaully an unresolved forward declaration. The included idl file "#include “MyInterfaceDefn.idl” actually defines MyInterface as dispinterface. Please note that dispinterface is not the same as interface. So while the dispinterface was defined, the forward reference for the interface was unfulfilled.

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Ben Anderson — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:09:01 GMT

As has been pointed out, this post contains a workaround to a change in behavior between the Windows SDK's midl released with Vista and that released with Visual Studio 2005. I am currently working with the owners of midl.exe on the Windows team to determine if the change was intentional and why so. I'll post an update if I get some solid info.

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Tim Lovell-Smith — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:37:09 GMT

There's something really important that you didn't mention, which is:

Either you are trying to get this issue fixed (the post sounds like you would rather blame the tools team than get it fixed), or...

WHY should the users work around this problem? What is inherently wrong with backwards (as opposed to forwards) declarations?

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Ken Hagan — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:43:17 GMT

Your "solution" is a workaround, and if the affected code is in a third-party header it isn't a terribly practical one. The real solution is to fix MIDL so that it accepts re-declarations, just like any C or C++ compiler would.

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Observer — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:14:14 GMT

Please, please, please guys, talk to your managers and make them see that the C++ front-end is the most valuable piece of software you have.

Why are ATL libraries neglected while .NET is eating all the resources. Why is ADO.next taking precedence and opening up everything while OLE DB tooling is closed down in binary form for VS.

It is not good news, and I can understand people moving away to .NET have had enough. However, it is obvious that C++ native support has been suffering because all the resources have gone to those green (and yellow Java for that matter) pastures.

It is nonsense to work more on C++ CLI support than native libraries, OS and Win32.

Please provide us with thin and fast OS and tools.

Hearing that IDL compiler is upgraded is great news but far more work needs to be done to bring C++ back to support of GCC.

re: Fixing "Unsatisfied forward declaration" error from MIDL

Lennie — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:49:09 GMT

Hi,

Is there a list somewhere of these changes?

Kind Regards,

Lennie De Villiers