Yes, but this is only a solution if your library is only targeting windows. If you want users of any standards-compliant C++ implementation to be able to use y

Yes, but this is only a solution if your library is only targeting windows. If you want users of any standards-compliant C++ implementation to be able to use your library today, you'll still have to go with c-abi symbols or ship the sources. All other worakrounds are vendor-specific and not part of the standard. [Of course even objects containing only C symbols are not portable across platforms either, but at least the C ABI/calling convention is more or less strictly defined for any given target platform. Assuming no other platform-specific stuff like glibc is used]