导出/定义静态模板专用成员变量C ++

Question

So I am currently exporting a DLL, and I've run into a problem where I have a template class that contains a static char*[] member variable. I want to define this for specializations of that template.

example:

MyTemplate.h

#include <dll_defines.h>

template <typename T>
class MY_API MyTemplate
{
    public:
        static char const*  m_array[];
}

MySpecializedTemplate.h

#include <dll_defines.h>
#include <MyTemplate.h>

class MY_API Specialized; //pretend its more than just a decl.

template <> char const* MyTemplate<Specialized>::m_array[] =
{
    "Hello, World", 
    "I need help"
};

The issue I am having is when I try and link the DLL in another project, it gives me an error stating:

definition of dllimport static data member not allowed

Is there no way to define a static data member of a template and export it into a DLL??

Answer 1

Okay, so I've realized that I can in fact initialize static template variables in an implementation file. I also realized I SHOULD NOT attach an export or import macro to a template function defined in a header file.

DONT DO THIS:
template <typename T>
MY_API void foo()
{
    cout << "This won't link, don't try it << endl
}

Realized that the above has a pretty bad problem once MY_API is defined as

__declspec(dllimport)