LNK2005 happen when include .h file in .c file

Question

I am trying to implement a Stack in a program using C language. I separate them into 3 file.

First, stack.h file. It include some essential declaration and function such as Pop, Push for a stack. Second, stack.c file. It is a file implement the function inside stack.h file. In my case, I implement my stack using a dynamic array. Third, main.c file. It is where I use Stack to do some calculation.

However, I get LNK2005(...already defined in ...obj) compile error at the end. I know this error would happen when there exist a multiple times of definition. However, I saw many example with same function name in .h/.c file but didn't cause a error.

Here is the error log:

LNK1169 one or more multiply defined symbols found
LNK2005 _CreateStack already defined in main.obj
LNK2005 _IsEmpty already defined in main.obj
LNK2005 _Pop already defined in main.obj
LNK2005 _Push already defined in main.obj
LNK2005 _StackDepth already defined in main.obj

Thanks for you kindly attention. Here is my stack.h file.

typedef struct Stack Stack;

Stack* CreateStack();
void Push(Stack *s, char InputString);
void Pop(Stack *s);
int StackDepth(Stack *s);
int IsEmpty(Stack *s);

Here is my stack.c file.

#include "stack.h"

typedef struct Stack{
    .....
    .....
}

Stack* CreateStack(){
    ......
};

void Push(Stack *s, char InputString){
    ....
    ....
}

void Pop(Stack *s){
    ....
};

int StackDepth(Stack *s){
    ....
};

int IsEmpty(Stack *s){
    ....
};

Here is my main.c file

#include<stdio.h>
#include"stack.c"
#include"stack.h"

int main(){
    ....
    ....
    ....
    return 0;
}

could you edit your question to show the actual link error? and drop the semicolons at the end of your function definitions, they're useless. — Jean-François Fabre♦

immortal immortal · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-30T14:53:41

You have included your C file in your main file. The #include directive tells the pre-processor to textually paste the entire content of the file specified into the location where the #include directive is. This means that your function implementations from the stack.c file are now compiled both as part of your stack.c file and your main.c file - implemented twice, as your linker tells you. The compiler can't deal with ambiguity - it there are 2 matching functions for a call, it returns an error instead of randomly choosing one of them.

You should never #include C files, only headers (.h) files.

LNK2005 happen when include .h file in .c file

1 Answers