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I'm currently developing a C++ library for Windows which will be distributed as a DLL. My goal is to maximize binary interoperability; more precisely, the functions in my DLL must be usable from code compiled with multiple versions of MSVC++ and MinGW without having to recompile the DLL. However, I'm confused about which calling convention is best, cdecl or stdcall . Sometimes I hear statements like "the C calling convention is the only one guaranteed to be the same accross compilers", which contrasts with statements like " There are some variations in the interpretation of cdecl , particularly in how to return values ". This doesn't seem to stop certain library developers (like libsndfile ) to use the C calling convention in the DLLs they distribute, without any visible problems. On the other hand, the stdcall calling convention seems to be well-defined. From what I've been told, all Windows compilers are basically required to follow it because it's the convention used for Win32 and COM. This is based on the assumption that a Windows compiler without Win32/COM support would not be very useful. A lot of code snippets posted on forums declare functions as stdcall but I can't seem to find one single post which clearly explains why . There's too much conflicting information out there, and every search I run gives me different answers which doesn't really help me decide between the two. I'm searching for a clear, detailed, argumented explanation as to why I should choose one over the other (or why the two are equivalent). Note that

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