title: What is the condition needed to make sure that function pointers to imported functions are appropriately initialized by Windows?
body: <p>The way an import library is implemented—which is described in <a href="http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/146652/Creating-Import-Library-from-a-DLL-with-Header-Fil" rel="nofollow">here</a>—kind of surprises me in that function pointers to imported functions are <em>never</em> initialized. It is said that—from <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301805.aspx" rel="nofollow">a highly acclaimed article</a>—these function pointers are somehow considered as an entry within the IAT <s>so that they are appropriately initialized just in time by Windows</s>. What is so special in these function pointers, which looks like trivial function pointers, that makes a compiler treat them as an entry within the IAT?</p>