Visual C++ supports six calling conventions that you can use on a function. The __clrcall specifier means that the function should be called as a .NET function and allows you to write code that has mixed native code and managed code. C++/CLR (Microsoft's language extensions to C++ to write .NET code) is beyond the scope of this book. The other five are used to indicate how parameters are passed to a function (on the stack or using CPU registers) and whose responsibility it is to maintain the stack. We will cover just three: __cdecl, __stdcall, and __thiscall.
You will rarely explicitly use __thiscall; it is the calling convention used for functions defined as members of custom types, and indicates that ...
