Why SDL defines main macro?

by

Per the SDL Windows FAQ:

You should be using main() instead of WinMain() even though you are creating a Windows application, because SDL provides a version of WinMain() which performs some SDL initialization before calling your main code.

If for some reason you need to use WinMain(), take a look at the SDL source code in src/main/win32/SDL_main.c to see what kind of initialization you need to do in your WinMain() function so that SDL works properly.

SDL requires initialization, so it injects its own main function that runs its initialization before calling your “main” function, which it renames to SDL_main so that it does not conflict with the actual main function. As noted in the FAQ, your main function must be of the form

int main(int argc, char* argv[])

Leave a Comment