SDL3: SDL_Log seems to output to terminal after program ends

[Chen-Yuanmeng]

I'm new to SDL, so apologize for any inconvenience in case my question is stupid.

I experienced this on Windows 10 with mingw gcc version 15.1.0 (x86_64-posix-seh-rev0, Built by MinGW-Builds project).
I need to check if my program takes arguments -h or -v etc and in that case, I don't want a window but certain text in the console.

I compiled the program using

gcc example.c -o main.exe ^
  -ISDL3-3.2.16/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include ^
  -LSDL3-3.2.16/x86_64-w64-mingw32/lib ^
  -lSDL3 -mwindows

When I run the following program the following happens on the console:

E:\path\to\project>main --help

E:\path\to\project>Usage: main
This example does not take any command line arguments.

Why is this printed text after E:\path\to\project> appears?
This does not happen if compiled without -mwindows, but I don't want the console to appear if directly run from double-clicking it.

Minimal example:

#define SDL_MAIN_USE_CALLBACKS 1
#include <SDL3/SDL.h>
#include <SDL3/SDL_main.h>

static SDL_Window *window = NULL;
static SDL_Renderer *renderer = NULL;

#define WINDOW_WIDTH 640
#define WINDOW_HEIGHT 480

SDL_AppResult SDL_AppInit(void **appstate, int argc, char *argv[]) {
    if (argc > 1) {
        SDL_Log("Usage: %s\n", argv[0]);
        SDL_Log("This example does not take any command line arguments.\n");
        return SDL_APP_FAILURE;
    }

    SDL_SetAppMetadata("Example", "1.0", "com.example");

    if (!SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO)) {
        SDL_Log("Couldn't initialize SDL: %s", SDL_GetError());
        return SDL_APP_FAILURE;
    }

    if (!SDL_CreateWindowAndRenderer("example", WINDOW_WIDTH, WINDOW_HEIGHT, 0, &window, &renderer)) {
        SDL_Log("Couldn't create window/renderer: %s", SDL_GetError());
        return SDL_APP_FAILURE;
    }

    return SDL_APP_CONTINUE;
}

SDL_AppResult SDL_AppEvent(void *appstate, SDL_Event *event) {
    if (event->type == SDL_EVENT_QUIT) {
        return SDL_APP_SUCCESS;
    }
    return SDL_APP_CONTINUE;
}

SDL_AppResult SDL_AppIterate(void *appstate) {
    return SDL_APP_CONTINUE;
}

void SDL_AppQuit(void *appstate, SDL_AppResult result) {
}

Thanks!

[edo9300]

This seems more like the usual behavior of non console applications on windows, there the console is not blocked by the program so it prints the prompt again as it can accept other inputs while the program is still running, you can confirm that for example by adding an infinite loop right after the print, and you'll see the text still be printed after the cmd prompt

[Chen-Yuanmeng]

This seems more like the usual behavior of non console applications on windows, there the console is not blocked by the program so it prints the prompt again as it can accept other inputs while the program is still running, you can confirm that for example by adding an infinite loop right after the print, and you'll see the text still be printed after the cmd prompt

Thanks. It is indeed not related with SDL itself.

I'll try other methods to solve this.