C undefined reference to InetPtonW

Question

I'm trying to use InetPtonW:

if(InetPtonW(AF_INET, argv[1], &ThisSenderInfo.sin_addr)<=0) { 
    return 1; 
}

However I get the following message when compiling:

warning: implicit declaration of function 'InetPtonW' [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
undefined reference to `InetPtonW'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

I've read the documentation located here and I've followed everything but still can't get it to work.

• I'm compiling with Ws2_32 library gcc test.c -o test -lws2_32 using MinGW

• I've included the needed header files #include <ws2tcpip.h> and #include <windows.h>

• I've tried using InetPton but it returns the same error

• Running on Windows 10

Answer 1

I recall running into this exact issue some many months ago. @alk's comment points to a question whose accepted answer feels very similar to what fixed it for me.

You should be able to #define a version macro (or two) before your #include lines to fix it.

While I feel strongly that the aforementioned answer is correct, I'll update this answer later today when I can verify.

Update!

The code I was referencing above doesn't have InetPtonW in it anymore but it had the necessary #defines in it. Here's a brief example that compiles on my machine (win10/mingw64/gcc 8.2.0):

Z:\Some\Directory>gcc test.c -o test -lmswsock -lws2_32

#define NTDDI_VERSION NTDDI_VISTA
#define WINVER _WIN32_WINNT_VISTA
#define _WIN32_WINNT _WIN32_WINNT_VISTA
#include <winsock2.h>
#include <Ws2tcpip.h>
#include <stdio.h>

/* This is "test.c", please pardon the lack of error checking. */

int main(void) {
    BYTE ipbuf[4] = {0};

    WSADATA wsa;
    WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsa);

    printf("%d: ", InetPtonW(AF_INET, L"127.0.0.1", &ipbuf));
    for(int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
        printf("%hhu.", ipbuf[i]);

    WSACleanup();
}

Output should look like:

Z:\Some\Directory>gcc test.c -o test -lmswsock -lws2_32

Z:\Some\Directory>test
1: 127.0.0.1.
Z:\Some\Directory>