Getting error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol when compiling SDL2 code in Windows using MSVC

Question

The complete error output:

SDL2main.lib(SDL_windows_main.obj) : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol __imp_CommandLineToArgvW referenced in function main_getcmdline

My compiler options:

cl -D WINDOWS -nologo -W4 -WX -wd4100 -Fe"output_file.exe" input_file.c SDL2.lib SDL2main.lib -I ./SDL2-2.0.12/include -link -LIBPATH:./SDL2-2.0.12/lib/x64 -SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE

My input_file.c header and main function:

#ifdef LINUX
#include <SDL2/SDL.h> /* Comes with stdio.h and stdlib.h */
#elif WINDOWS
#include <stdio.h>
#include "SDL.h"
#endif

int main(int argc, char* argv[])                                                                              {
  if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO|SDL_INIT_AUDIO|SDL_INIT_TIMER) != 0)
  {
    fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize SDL: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
    return -1;
  }

. . .

The SDL development folder used in the command line arguments is the development libraries zip file downloaded from libsdl.org

Why am I getting this error?

Answer 1

you also need to use the library called "shell32.lib"
cl -D WINDOWS -nologo -W4 -WX -wd4100 -Fe"output_file.exe" input_file.c shell32.lib SDL2.lib SDL2main.lib -I ./SDL2-2.0.12/include -link -LIBPATH:./SDL2-2.0.12/lib/x64 -SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE