inline code - what are MSVC's "rules"

We all know that Visual Studio is trying to support non-Microsoft compilers. I don't know how many are supported but Clang is one of them. Consider this code:-

Code:

---

#if defined (BUILDING_DLL)
  #define DLL_API __declspec(dllexport)
#else
  #define DLL_API __declspec(dllimport)
#endif

namespace Gtkmm2ext {

  class DLL_API Keyboard
  {
    public:
      Keyboard ();
      ~Keyboard ();

      static Keyboard& get_keyboard() { return *_the_keyboard; }

    protected:
      static Keyboard* _the_keyboard;
  };

} /* namespace */

---

If the above code appears in a header file, MSVC builds it just fine. But Clang has a habit of inling anything that gets defined in a header file. And of course for anything declared as __declspec(dllimport) that causes huge problems (e.g. functions like get_keyboard() which compile but won't then link...) The Clang devs are willing to fix this but they wanted to know how MSVC handles it (i.e. what the "rules" are). So I asked a question on Microsoft's Developer Community forum. But because Clang isn't a MS compiler, Microsoft just closed the thread!!

So does anyone know how MSVC inlines code? Back in the old days I remember that code would never be inlined if it wasn't declared using inline - and even if it was, inline was only considered as a hint to the compiler. The compiler was free to ignore it. Is that still the case for MSVC or are the rules more complicated these days?

Are these of any help?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppbl...visual-studio/
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp...?view=msvc-160
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp...?view=msvc-160

Thanks 2kaud - the 3rd link leads to a page with 2 x examples. And the 2nd example states that any function that's defined within a header file is now regarded as being implicitly inlined. But what I can't find out is whether that also apples to DLL functions. My experience suggests that it doesn't - but I just can't find it in writing anywhere... :cry: