SAL annotations

If you examine the library header files, you may notice some unusual annotations, for example, _In_z and _Out_z_cap_(_Size). These annotations are examples of the Microsoft source-code annotation language (SAL). SAL provides a set of annotations to describe how a function uses its parameters and return type. For example, it indicates the assumptions it makes about them and the guarantees it makes on finishing. The header file <sal.h> defines the annotations.

For more information about using SAL annotations in Visual Studio, see Using SAL annotations to reduce C/C++ code defects.

See also

C runtime (CRT) and C++ Standard Library (STL) .lib files