Mixing c++ standard strings and windows API
- by JB
Many windows APIs take a pointer to a buffer and a size element but the result needs to go into a c++ string. (I'm using windows unicode here so they are wstrings)
Here is an example :-
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <windows.h>
using namespace std;
// This is the method I'm interested in improving ...
wstring getComputerName()
{
vector<wchar_t> buffer;
buffer.resize(MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH+1);
DWORD size = MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH;
GetComputerNameW(&buffer[0], &size);
return wstring(&buffer[0], size);
}
int main()
{
wcout << getComputerName() << "\n";
}
My question really is, is this the best way to write the getComputerName function so that it fits into C++ better, or is there a better way? I don't see any way to use a string directly without going via a vector unless I missed something? It works fine, but somehow seems a little ugly. The question isn't about that particular API, it's just a convenient example.
