Evening all. I'm creating a static library for a project I'm working on at the moment. I'd like to hide as much of the implementation as possible, in order to avoid incorrect use of parts of the library. I am working in C++. I have a set of classes which I want the client program to be able to see and instantiate, and a set of classes which I want hidden. These classes reside within namespaces, and there will, most likely, be many couplings between them. Each class has a header file and an implementation file. If I create an include file to complement my library file, and include all of the header files for the set of classes I would like to be available to the client program, I will inevitably include header files for the classes I want to remain hidden. I suppose my question is this: can I define classes (and functions of certain classes) with __declspec( dllexport ) in their include files, then create an include file for my library and declare only those classes and class functions defined with __declspec( dllexport )? Is this the correct way of hiding implementation in a library? Thanks in advance for any replies...

Problem solved. I'll use an interface to the classes I want, and a pair of create/destroy functions inside my library. Thanks.