WinStd

Provides additional templates and function helpers for Windows API using Standard C++ in Microsoft Visual C++ 2017-2019

Features

Portable

This project does not require building. Just #include individual files from this repository into your source code and get started.

Lightweight Classes

...to simplify Windows allocated memory and resources focused on their release to prevent leakage

The classes provide unified create methods and free destructors. They are like smart-pointers for various Windows resources. Once created, you use the class instance as a snap-in replacement for pointers/handles parameters in the standard Win32 API functions.

Example

 {C++}
// Load and set icon.
winstd::library lib_shell32(LoadLibraryEx(_T("shell32.dll"), NULL, LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_DATAFILE | LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_IMAGE_RESOURCE));
if (!lib_shell32)
    throw winstd::win_runtime_error("LoadLibraryEx failed");
m_note_icon->SetIcon(wxLoadIconFromResource(lib_shell32, MAKEINTRESOURCE(48)));

Functions and Templates

...to extend standard Win32 API functions for variable-size outputs

Different Win32 API functions have different ways of returning variable-sized data. Getting tired of carefully studying MSDN for each particular Win32 API function how to preallocate the output memory correctly? We too...

WinStd provides a subset of Win32 API identically named functions (C++ polymorphism to the rescue), where one can use std::string, std::wstring, std::vector<> etc. as an output parameter. WinStd handles all the dirty work with memory allocation for you, so you can focus on your code.

Example

 {C++}
// Encode response as OEM.
std::string response;
WideCharToMultiByte(CP_OEMCP, 0, L"Copyright \u00A9 2017", response, NULL, NULL);
std::cout << response.c_str() << std::endl;

String Formatters

...for those situations where one must quckly compose a temporary string using sprintf() or FormatMessage()

Example

 {C++}
if (dwMaxSendPacketSize < sizeof(EapPacket))
    throw std::invalid_argument(
        winstd::string_printf(
            "Maximum packet size too small (minimum: %zu, available: %u).",
            sizeof(EapPacket) + 1,
            dwMaxSendPacketSize));

Usage

1. Clone the repository into your solution folder.
2. Add WinStd's include folder to Additional Include Directories in your project's C/C++ settings.
3. Include .h files from WinStd as needed:

    {C++}
   #include <WinStd/Shell.h>
   #include <string>
   #include <iostream>
    
   using namespace std;
    
   void main()
   {
       wstring path;
       PathCanonicalizeW(path, L"C:\\Windows\\Temp\\test\\..");
       wcout << path.c_str() << endl;
   }

An auto-generated documentation is here.

More examples and use-cases can be found in GÉANTLink and ZRCola projects source code. They make heavy use of WinStd.