Re: How to return string?

From:
"Igor Tandetnik" <itandetnik@mvps.org>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.atl
Date:
Sat, 19 May 2007 08:55:46 -0400
Message-ID:
<uedqBUhmHHA.3520@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl>
"Lee Tow" <fbjlt@pub3.fz.fj.cn> wrote in message
news:uLyM7GfmHHA.2452@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl

     I want to know if I want to return string in the function of
interface,
look:HRESULT PrtStr([out,retval] wchar_t *str);


This is a poor choice for the interface. It suggests the caller must
allocate memory for the string and the function would then fill this
buffer with actual data, but a) there is no way for the function to know
how large a buffer the caller has allocated, and b) the caller doesn't
know how much it's supposed to allocate.

If your interface needs to be automation-compatible, make it

HRESULT PrtStr([out,retval] BSTR* str);

If it doesn't have to be, you may still choose to use BSTR, but there
are also other options. For example:

HRESULT PrtStr([out,retval,string] wchar_t** str);

Here the function must allocate memory for the string with
CoTaskMemAlloc, and the caller would free it with CoTaskMemFree when
done with it.
--
With best wishes,
    Igor Tandetnik

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