What Every Computer Programmer Should Know About Windows API, CRT and Standard C++ Library

• 1. The Purpose
• 2. Basics
  • 2.2 Hardware
  • 2.3 Operating System
  • 2.4 Application Programming Interface
    • 2.4.1 Platform Software Development Kit
  • 2.5 C Runtime Library
    • 2.5.1 Standards and Extensions
  • 2.6 Unicode Awareness
    • 2.6.1 Platform SDK Is Already Unicode Aware
    • 2.6.2 PSDK Solution: TCHAR's
    • 2.6.3 CRT Solution: _TCHAR's
  • 2.7 C++ Standard Library
    • 2.7.1 Contents of C++ Standard Library
  • 2.8 Cross-platform Development
• 3. Code Reuse
  • 3.1 Linking Statically
    • 3.1.1 CRT As A Black Box
  • 3.2 Linking Dynamically
• 4. Summary

1. The Purpose

The purpose of this article is to clear the essential points about Windows API, C Runtime Library (CRT) and Standard C++ Library (STL). It is not uncommon that even experienced developers have confusion and hold onto misconceptions about the relationship between these parts. If you ever wondered what is implemented on top of what and never had a time to figure it out, then keep reading.

2. Basics

The following diagram represents the relationship between WinAPI, CRT and STL.

Diagram #1: The relationship between Windows API, CRT and C++ Standard Library

Application				User Mode
	Standard C++ Library
		C Runtime Library
Operating System				Kernel Mode
Hardware

Adjacent blocks can communicate with each other. What does it mean? Let's go from the bottom to the top.

2.2. Hardware

Each hardware part exposes its own set of commands that enables operating system to control and communicate with it. An amount and complexity of commands varies from part to part. Often different vendors of the same part may provide additional commands beyond requirements of a common standard. Communication with countless hardware devices with endless variety of commands would be enormous toil for software writers if they had to access it directly. Here operating system comes to the rescue.

2.3 Operating System

The purpose of the OS is to encapsulate all intricacies of underlying hardware and provide unified access interface to computer's parts. No application can access hardware directly. Only OS can access hardware. The part of the OS that accesses hardware is said to run in kernel mode.

Older OS'es like MS-DOS, for example, allowed programs to access hardware resources directly. Though it enabled software writers to make certain performance gains, in the long run this technique often made the software very brittle and incompatible with newer hardware parts.

2.4 Application Programming Interface

OS exposes underlying machine resources by means of Application Programming Interface (API). API is a uniform set of functions that enables software developers to abstract from hardware peculiarities and focus on their own goals. Application cannot bypass an OS and access hardware resources directly. It is commonly said that applications run in user mode. MS Windows provides API as a set of C functions. C language is chosen as the lowest common denominator for software development under Windows platform.

2.4.1 Platform Software Development Kit

MS distributes for free Platform Software Development Kit (Platform SDK or PSDK), which enables software developers to write Windows programs. PSDK contains:

1. Header files with API functions declarations
2. Import Lib files to link with (where calls to API functions are redirected to relevant DLL's)
3. Documentation
4. Various binary helper tools

For example, to open or create a file one calls CreateFile function, which is declared in "WinBase.h" header file and requires "Kernel32.lib" library to link with.

Names of Windows API functions follow Camel case naming convention and usually are easily distinguished by this. Names of macros and constants are conventionally in uppercase. Each function always has "Requirements" section on its documentation page where necessary headers, import libraries and supported OS versions are specified.

A Windows application can call any API function, provided application follows function's signature and links with appropriate import library (or gets function's address directly from implementing DLL with GetProcAddress call.

2.5 C Runtime Library

On top of OS API functions software vendors implement C Runtime Library (CRT). CRT is a standardized set of header files and C functions, which implement common tasks, such as string operations, some math functions, basic input/output etc. Usually the same vendor that makes C compiler also provides CRT implementation. International Organization for Standardization [^] is responsible for C language standard and its runtime library.

2.5.1 Standards and Extensions

Theoretically, by using only standard C functions developer can ensure that the same code may be used to build and run a program under any platform where decent C compiler and CRT implementation exists. However, in practice software vendors include many useful extensions to standard library functions, which make developers' life easier but at a price of portability.

Names of CRT functions are in lower case. Names of macros and constants are in uppercase. Names of extensions begin from underscore character, for example _mkdir function. Each function always has "Requirements" section on its documentation page where its header is specified.

2.6 Unicode Awareness

2.6.1 Platform SDK Is Already Unicode Aware

Actually, the above mentioned Win32 API names are not real names. These names are mere macros that defined in PSDK header files. So, when PSDK documentation mentions a function, for example CreateFile, then a developer should be aware that CreateFile is a macro. True names of the CreateFile function are CreateFileA and CreateFileW. Yes, there are two, rather than one, versions for many Win32 API functions. The version that ends with 'A' accepts ANSI character strings, i.e. strings of regular char's. Another version ends with 'W' (so called "wide" version) and accepts Unicode character strings, i.e. strings of wchar_t's. Both versions are implemented within kernel32.dll module. CreateFile macro will expand into CreateFileW name if UNICODE symbol is defined for a project and into CreateFileA name otherwise.

There are three families of Windows OS: MS-DOS/9x-based, Windows CE and Windows NT.

1. The MS-DOS/9x-based family, which includes Windows 1.0-3.11, 95, 98 and Windows ME, is based on MS-DOS OS. Earlier version of Windows: 1.0-2.0 are true 16-bit OS. Newer versions: 3.0, 95, 98 and ME are so called hybrid 16/32-bit OS'es. They are 16-bit at low level, but capable of running 32-bit programs with certain limitations. One of these limitations is that only ANSI version of Win32 API functions exist on this platform. Currently, MS-DOS/9x-based family is extinct and unsupported by Microsoft.
2. The Windows NT family started from Window NT 3.1 in early 90's and includes Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Window Vista and Server flavors of these OS'es. Windows NT family is true 32-bit OS. It supports both ANSI and Unicode versions of Win32 API. Windows NT family operates with Unicode strings internally. The ANSI version of a Win32 API function is a mere wrapper around the real worker – the Unicode version of a function.
3. The Windows CE family is intended for mobile and embedded devices. It is true 32-bit OS. Windows CE supports only Unicode version of Win32 API.

2.6.2 PSDK Solution: TCHAR's

In order to avoid multiple PSDK's for different Windows families Microsoft implemented generic text characters or TCHAR's. TCHAR and other relevant macros are defined in WinNT.h header file. The main idea is that developer never uses char or wchar_t types explicitly, but uses TCHAR macro instead. TCHAR macro will expand into appropriate character type depends on whether UNICODE symbol is defined for a build. In the same manner, instead of calling 'A' or 'W' version of a Win32 API function, developer calls generic macro version, which will accommodate to actual character type at compile time.

// Generic code
//
LPCTSTR psz = TEXT("Hello World!");
TCHAR szDir[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
GetCurrentDirectory(MAX_PATH, szDir);

// What actually happens if UNICODE symbol is NOT defined for a build
//
const char* psz = "Hello World!";
char szDir[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
GetCurrentDirectoryA(MAX_PATH, szDir);

// GetCurrentDirectoryA is a wrapper. It does the following:
// 1. Allocates temporary wchar_t buffer of given size.
// 2. Calls real worker: GetCurrentDirectoryW.
// 3. Calls WideCharToMultiByte in order to convert wchar_t string into
//    char string according to the active code page for a calling thread.
//    If some character cannot be converted, then it will be replaced with the '?' symbol.

// What actually happens if UNICODE symbol is defined for a build
//
const wchar_t* psz = L"Hello World!";
wchar_t szDir[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
GetCurrentDirectoryW(MAX_PATH, szDir); // direct call to real worker; no wrappers in the middle

Using TCHAR's allows a developer to maintain single code line both for ANSI and Unicode builds. Nowadays, if you do not intend to target old Windows 9x/Me platforms you can safely forget about TCHAR's and use Unicode strings everywhere and make Unicode only builds. As an added bonus Unicode application can forget about code pages hustle and use the same logic for all strings.

The easy way to remember PSDK string declarations is to say them loud:

            L P C T STR = const TCHAR* 
            ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
            | | | | | 
Long -------+ | | | | 
Pointer to ---+ | | | 
Constant -------+ | | 
TCHAR ------------+ | 
STRing -------------+ 

Sometimes L - "Long" is omitted, since long and short pointers are obsolete for Win32 platform. So, typedef can look like PTSTR = "pointer to TCHAR string", which is just TCHAR*.

Here are two screenshots of the same progam. First screenshot is taken when the program is built as ANSI. Second screenshot demonstrates Unicode build of the program.

2.6.3 CRT Solution: _TCHAR's

Following Platform SDK logic Microsoft introduced generic text mapping into its C runtime library. CRT uses additional header file to define generic character macros: "tchar.h". In order to be compliant with requirements of the C language standard all non-standard names start from the underscore symbol. Also, CRT uses shorter _T() macro for literal strings instead of longer TEXT() macro, which is defined in "WinNT.h". CRT authors decided to advance generic text notion even further and as a result of this decision now CRT distinguishes three modes for text characters:

• SBCS - Single Byte Character Set. Classic char is used for strings. One ASCII character fits within one char element. No symbol has to be defined for a project. This is the traditional C language approach that survived from the 1970's to our days. English characters are represented with values 0x00 - 0x7F; non-English characters are represented with values 0x80 - 0xFF. The actual meaning of non-English characters is interpreted according to currently active code page.
• _MBCS - Multi-Byte Character Set. Classic char is used for strings. One multi-byte symbol may require one or two char elements. The _MBCS symbol has to be defined for a project. _MBCS is backward compatible with SBCS mode and was the default choice for new projects in MS Visual C++ until version 8.0 (2005). _MBCS was commonly used for Eastern Asian languages like Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Now _MBCS is being mostly ousted by Unicode characters. Using _MBCS was the only feasible option to handle Eastern Asian languages on Window 9x/Me platform.
• _UNICODE - Unicode Character Set. The wchar_t type is used for strings. One Unicode symbol occupies one wchar_t element, which is 16-bit on Windows platform and can represent up to 65535 different values. This is the default mode for new projects starting from version 8.0 (2005) of MS Visual C++.

CRT uses _MBCS and _UNICODE symbols definition in order to distinguish between multi-byte and Unicode builds.

Diagram #2: The Generic Text Mapping in CRT

Generic-text data type or name	SBCS (_UNICODE, _MBCS not defined)	_MBCS defined	_UNICODE defined
_TCHAR	char	char	wchar_t
_T("Hello, World!")	"Hello, World!"	"Hello, World!"	L"Hello, World!"
Function name prefix and example: _tcs _tcscat, _tcsicmp	str, _str strcat, _stricmp	_mbs _mbscat, _mbsicmp	wcs, _wcs wcscat, _wcsicmp

// Generic code; names are not standard, hence the leading underscore.
//
_TCHAR message[128] = _T("The time is: ");
_TCHAR* now = _tasctime(&tm);
_tcscat(message, now);
_putts(message);

// What happens if no symbol is defined at all (SBCS).
//
char message[128] = "The time is: ";
char* now = asctime(&tm);
strcat(message, now);
puts(message);

// What happens if _MBCS symbol is defined (Multi-byte Character Set);
// non-standard names are with the leading underscore.
//
char message[128] = "The time is: ";
char* now = asctime(&tm);
_mbscat(message, now);
puts(message);

// What happens if _UNICODE symbol is defined (Unicode Character Set);
// non-standard names are with the leading underscore.
//
wchar_t message[128] = L"The time is: ";
wchar_t* now = _wasctime(&tm);
wcscat(message, now);
_putws(message);

2.7 C++ Standard Library

C++ programming language defines its own standard library. C++ Standard Library specifies a set of classes and functions that facilitate common programming tasks.

Often C++ Standard Library is referred as STL. This abbreviation belongs to pre-standard times and stands for Standard Template Library. Since latest revision of C++ standard STL became a subset of C++ Standard Library. However, the term STL is still ubiquitous and used as a synonym for C++ Standard Library.

International Organization for Standardization [^] is responsible for C++ language standard and its library.

2.7.1 Contents of C++ Standard Library

C++ Standard Library may be divided into following major parts:

1. Containers, where common data structures are defined, such as vector, set, list, map etc.
2. Iterators, which provide uniform way to operate over standard containers.
3. Algorithms, which implement common useful algorithms. Algorithms use iterators instead of working directly with containers. That's why the same implementation of an algorithm can be used with different standard containers.
4. Allocators, which handle memory storage allocation/deallocation for elements in containers.
5. Function Objects and Utilities, which are helpers to algorithms and containers.
6. Streams, which provide uniform object oriented way of input/output.
7. C Runtime Library. Due to backward compatibility of C++ with C language, CRT is incorporated into Standard C++ Library.

2.8 Cross-platform Development

Sometimes there is requirement that software program will run on several computer platforms. Developer may choose to develop as many separate code bases of software as there are target platforms. However, this approach is tedious and error prone. It is also wasteful and ineffective considering development resources since the same functionality must be implemented and maintained over and over again.

The common approach is to develop single code base for all platforms and restrict the usage of platform-dependent API functions and vendor-specific standard libraries extensions. It makes development harder, however, in the long run all platforms benefit from new features and bug fixes.

3. Code Reuse

There are two ways to incorporate CRT and/or C++ Library code into a program: 1) static linking and 2) dynamic linking. In the following discussion I will use solely CRT term to save typing, however these concepts are relevant both to CRT and C++ Standard Library.

3.1 Linking Statically

When CRT/C++ Library linked statically, then all its code is embedded into resulting executable image. This technique has both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Simple deployment. It is enough to copy a program to destination computer to make it run. No need to worry about complicated scenarios of CRT/C++ Library deployment.
2. No additional files. It can be very convenient for small utility application to comprise just of one executable file. Such self-contained application can be easily downloaded and redistributed without the risk to break its integrity.

Disadvantages:

1. Not serviceable. New versions of a library and fixes of an old verions are invisible for statically linked programs.
2. Domino Effect of static linking. In the modern world rarely a program can pull it out all by itself. Nowadays software programs are complex and heavily rely on 3rd party components and libraries. Also, a software program itself is often divided into several loosely coupled modules. Using static linking to CRT in one of them greatly reduces interoperability between modules and forces developer to fall back on lowest common denominator, i.e. C interface with explicit methods for acquisition and release of resources. Following section discusses the issue in more details.

3.1.1 CRT As A Black Box

The problem is that internal CRT objects cannot be shared with other CRT instances. The memory allocated in one instance of CRT must be freed in the same instance, the file opened on one instance of CRT must be operated and closed by functions from the same instance, etc. It happens because CRT tracks acquired resources internally. Any attempt to free memory chunk or read from file via FILE* that came from other CRT instance will lead to corruption of internal CRT state and most likely to crash.

That's why linking CRT statically obligates a developer of a module to provide additional functions to release allocated resources and a user of a module to remember to call these functions in order to prevent resource leaks. No STL containers or C++ objects that use allocations internally can be shared across modules that link to CRT statically. Following diagram illustrates the usage of a memory buffer allocated via call to malloc.

Diagram #2: Using memory allocated by malloc from different modules

In the above diagram Module 1 is linked to CRT statically, while Modules 2 and 3 are linked to CRT dynamically. Modules 2 and 3 can pass CRT owned objects between them freely. For example, a memory chunk allocated with malloc in Module 3 can be freed in Module 2 with free. It is because both malloc and free calls will end up in the same instance of CRT.

On the other hand, Module 1 cannot let other modules to free its resources. Everything allocated in Module 1 must be freed by Module 1. It is because only Module 1 has an access to statically linked instance of CRT. In the above sample Module 2 must remember to call a function from Module 1 in order to properly release acquired memory.

3.2 Linking Dynamically

When CRT/C++ Library linked dynamically, then only small import libraries are linked with resulting executable image. Import libraries conatin instructions where to find actual implementation of CRT/C++ Library functions. On program's start system loader reads these instructions and loads appropriate DLL's into process' address space.

Advantages:

1. Improved Modularity. As described in previous sections overall modularity of a program can benefit from dynamic linking. Program can be divided into several modules while being able to pass relatively high-level objects between them.
2. Faster start. CRT DLL's are preloaded by the the system on start. Then when a program needs to load CRT module, no actual load occurs. It enables the system to save physical memory and reduce page swapping.

Disadvantages:

1. Complicated deployment. CRT libraries must be redistributed and properly installed in order program to work. It requires a writing of additional setup program and thinking out deployment strategy.

4. Summary

The article described relationships and dependencies between Windows API, C Runtime Library and Standard C++ Library. Windows API is a lowest operational level for user mode programs. On top of Windows API there is C Runtime Library, which encapsulates and hides operating system differences. Standard C++ Library provides much more functionality and also includes CRT as an integral part. Using only standardized functions and classes allows to write cross-platform applications. Such applications require rebuild only in order to run on new platform. No code change is required.

Both C Runtime Library and Standard C++ Library can be linked to statically or dynamically, depending on application's needs. Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks.

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Poor copy of MSDN kilt 14:21 30 Jan '09   What's the goal in copying and assembling parts of MSDN documentation ?!!! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 5.00/5 (1 vote) CRT implemented partially in PSDK hatcat 2:05 26 Aug '08   Nice article. It's worth pointing out that, if you are deploying solely on Windows, the SDK offers some implementations of the CRT which are much speedier and rely on platform knowledge. For example, CopyMemory is a drop-in replacement (bar the return type) for memcpy. This article could be improved with a list of the CRT replacements implemented in the SDK (there's quite a few if I recall correctly). Indeed, although it is beyond the scope of this article, you can write C programs without actually linking to any CRT Library code. Doing this with C++ is rather harder (exception handling and static init are problematic). Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: CRT implemented partially in PSDK Alex Blekhman 2:23 26 Aug '08   hatcat wrote: the SDK offers some implementations of the CRT which are much speedier and rely on platform knowledge Actually, it is for several PSDK versions already that CopyMemory et al is a mere typedef for memcpy. Just press F12 in VS IDE when you have a caret on CopyMemory token. Reagrding CRT-less programs. Yes, it is possible, but now it is harder to make such program/DLL than a couple of years ago. Staring from VC++2005 the compiler injects CRT calls in a generated code (like memset or _chkstk, for example) regardless whether you link with CRT or not. So you will be required to implement these routines if you don't link with CRT. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Good article. Ask for help of a question. _Chen_Jun_ 17:52 19 Aug '08   As we know, Microsoft provides source code of the CRT, in Visual Studio Suite and in some version of Platform SDKs. But there are so many versions of MSVCRTD.DLL along the time, how can we easily get the source code of a specific CRT version so that we can debug into it? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Good article. Ask for help of a question. Alex Blekhman 2:07 20 Aug '08   We cannot get the CRT source code easily. The only source code that is available is tha one with Visual Studio. Usualy, updates for VS will update the CRT/MFC source code as well. However, if there is a different version of a CRT DLL, which is used by a process, then you out of luck. All you can do is to go to VS debugger settings and uncheck the option that requires strict correspondence between a binary image and its source code. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Very nice! wtwhite 6:32 19 Aug '08   Very nice high-level summary -- definitely would have saved me a lot of time back when I was figuring this stuff out myself... One minor correction: I think your description of _MBCS and _UNICODE is a little unclear. To specify ANSI "mode" (i.e. to cause all the CRT _tcs...() functions to consider characters to be exactly one byte long), just leave _UNICODE undefined; defining the _MBCS symbol actually turns on a third mode of operation in which characters can be either 1 or 2 bytes long, depending on locale settings. WTJW Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Very nice! Alex Blekhman 7:15 19 Aug '08   Yes, you're correct. _MBCS will cause different routine mappings for some functions. However, the code above will remain exactly the same both for _MBCS and plain ANSI build. I meant to keep it simple so I didn't want to delve into `char' vs `multibyte char sequence' discussion. Anyway, in order to prevent any misunderstanding I'll fix the paragraph very soon. Thanks for pointing this out. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink TCHAR's MAXS72U 22:27 18 Aug '08   Great article Alex, one more thing about chapter 2.6.2 PSDK: TCHAR's: I think you are missing to correctly size the declared var on sample below: // Generic code // LPCTSTR psz = TEXT("Hello World!"); TCHAR szDir[sizeof(TCHAR)*MAX_PATH] = { 0 }; GetCurrentDirectory(sizeof(TCHAR)*MAX_PATH, szDir); With the sizeof(TCHAR) added you will get '1' (1 byte for 1 char) if UNICODE is undefined, otherwise you will get '2' (2 bytes for 1 wchar_t) if UNICODE is defined. In this way you'll get the correct lenght of the szDir var. Thank you "Take time to think, it is the source of power" Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: TCHAR's Alex Blekhman 23:08 18 Aug '08   No, the code is correct. The `nBufferLength' parameter of `GetCurrentDirectory' function is the length of the buffer for the current directory string in TCHARs, not in bytes. No need to multiply it by sizeof(TCHAR). Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: TCHAR's MAXS72U 23:42 18 Aug '08   ok, maybe the sizeof(TCHAR) on 'GetCurrentDirectory' call is wrong, but I think that the var declaration should be modified because the resulting buffers (with UNICODE or not) have different sizes. Thank you "Take time to think, it is the source of power" Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: TCHAR's Alex Blekhman 23:46 18 Aug '08   No, the buffer is perfectly OK. It is because `GetCurrentDirectory' expects the buffer length in characters, not in bytes. So, the number passed to the function correctly reflects the size of the buffer in characters (be it `char' or `wchar_t' buffer). Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: TCHAR's MAXS72U 23:49 18 Aug '08   ok, thank you for the correction, sorry. "Take time to think, it is the source of power" Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: TCHAR's Alex Blekhman 0:55 19 Aug '08   You are welcome. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink CRT resource sharing a bad idea dgendreau 7:40 15 Aug '08   Great into to the windows platform. I do have one minor nit to pick however. In section 3.1.1 "CRT As A Black Box", you advocate linking to the CRT dynamically because it allows (for example) module 3 to allocate and return a resource and module 2 to free it. While there are many reasons to decide between static and dynamic linking, this is not a good example. In my experience, sharing resource ownership like this is a bad idea in practice because it leads to unnecessary coupling between your modules. Whenever I write a module that allocates a resource of some sort, that same module should also expose a way to free it. For example, What would happen if you needed to compile your module 3 in debug mode but leave module 2 in release mode? Module 2 would crash when attempting to free the object returned by module 3 (allocated by the debug CRT). If your suggestion is carried too far, all modules of an entire project would have to re-compiled in debug mode in order to debug a single module. Your example of module 1 is the best practice implementation in my opinion. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 5.00/5 (2 votes) Re: CRT resource sharing a bad idea Alex Blekhman 8:28 15 Aug '08   Of course there is no one single right answer to that. It depends on requirements of a project and development practices that adopted by the dev department. Also, module interface makes a great difference. Consider: 1. A module exposes C functions only, providing both acquiring and freeing functions. In that case you can link as you wish, because a user of the module is not affected in any way whether you link statically or dynamically. 2. A module exposes C++ classes. In that case you lost your freedom. Even though you still may call it a DLL module, in practice you must perceive it as a static library. Now, linking a module that exposes C++ classes with CRT staticaly won't gain you much. The module and its user are already tightly coupled. They must use the same version of compiler and the same DLL version of CRT. Otherwise there will be big troubles at run time. However, a developer still may benefit by breaking big application into several DLL modules that expose C++ classes. Development process is more convenient, since you need to rebuild only relevant DLL module instead of whole program. Also, overall modularity of a project is improved. 3. A module exposes only pure virtual C++ classes and provides a factory function to create instances. Instances are destroyed with explicit function call. This COM-like approach may work if you restrict methods of exposed classes to built-in types and POD's. It is not much different from the first approach. In the same manner, a user does not care how you link since he/she is not affected by this. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Great! Hans Dietrich 21:10 14 Aug '08   Very nice, tidy explanation. A few minor points: instead of just calling it the "Operating System", you may as well just call it what Microsoft does: Win32. Also, in section 2.6.2, you say In order to avoid multiple PSDK's for different Windows families... While a true statement, within the system DLLs there are two versions of each function, as you note elsewhere. Within each function, use of TCHAR is irrelevant - it's always either ANSI or UNICODE. So the PSDK is a "combined" PSDK, with macros choosing the function. Very informative. Are you going to do an article on the .Net architecture? Best wishes, Hans [CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles] Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Great! Alex Blekhman 21:45 14 Aug '08   Thanks for ths feedback. Actually, I have never thought of including .Net in this overview. May be it deservers a section after all. Yes, there is only one PSDK of course. What I want to say is that instead of working with two separate sets of functions for each Windows family, one can use generic macro names. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Good stuff emilio_grv 22:38 16 Jan '08   Thanks for this - for me- 5 rate article. But there's one point that should require a better qualification. Your assertion "Both C Runtime Library and Standard C++ Library can be linked to statically or dynamically" may sound inaccurate, being the most of the C++ Library a set of templates (it is - in fact - a set of header with no binaries, that implements C++ inline templates, that calls themselves the old CRT flat APIs). Templates, in particular, due to their "lazy instantiation" nature cannot be "static or dynamically linked". They aren't linkable at all, and are expanded in all the translation units that use them. Unless provides some libraries containing some explicit instantiation for given particular parameter values. In other words, it is a subject that should be more expanded. 2 bugs found. > recompile ... 65534 bugs found. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Good stuff Alex Blekhman 3:21 17 Jan '08   You are correct in general about templates instantiation. However, MS C++ Standard Library has its own DLL with some of containers and streams instantiated for `char' and `wchar_t' types. When project is built with `_STATIC_CPPLIB' definition specified, then standard C++ templates instantiated from header files instead of being imported from MSVCPxx.dll. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink new/delete instead of malloc/free Andromeda Shun 21:52 14 Jan '08   Hi! First of all, I liked your article! When you talked about memory allocation using dynamically linked CRT instances I wondered if the same applies to new/delete. If I create an object in a module linked with an older version of the CRT and delete the object in a module linked with a newer version, and I have both versions of the CRT on my machine, what happens? For example let's assume I have CRT v1.0 and v2.0 that both contain a class named theFoo. Now I have two modules m1 and m2, m1 using CRT v1.0, m2 using CRT v2.0. When I create an object of theFoo in m1, the constructor of theFoo defined in CRT v1.0 is called. Now when I delete the object in m2 what happens? I assume, that the destructor of theFoo defined in CRT v2.0 is called, which is not good. So what we do here when working with CRT objects across module boundaries is that we wrap the CRT class. So we have a wrapper fooWrapper defined in m1. When m2 deletes the object the destructor of fooWrapper is called which calls the destructor of theFoo defined in CRT v1.0, since m1 is linked with v1.0. This is more work to do, but afaik it's safer when the CRT implementation changes. Best regards, Torsten Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: new/delete instead of malloc/free Alex Blekhman 3:23 17 Jan '08   You're correct about passing objects across modules boundaries. Using pure abstract interfaces is a common approach for C++ objects to communicate across modules. This is how COM interfaces work, too. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: new/delete instead of malloc/free liaohaiwen 0:01 15 Aug '08   Can u give an example project? So Reader will be quitely clear about your discussion. Thanks haiwen liao Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: new/delete instead of malloc/free Alex Blekhman 0:22 15 Aug '08   I think this topic deserves its own article. Putting too much infirmation in one single article will confuse many readers. Thanks for the idea, though. I think I'll write about it soon. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Excellent Matthew Faithfull 5:03 14 Jan '08   A really good and concise article, thanks Alex. I've been trying to write basically the same article myself for a while now and after several attempts it was still only half completed, now you've done it for me and with nice diagrams as well I hope you don't mind if I reference it heavily if I ever get around to writing the next bit I've got planned. I think the C Library is very little understood by many developers ( I used to be one of them ) and there is a lot to be gained, especially in terms of writing cross platform code, by studying it. Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 4.20/5 (2 votes) Re: Excellent Alex Blekhman 5:29 14 Jan '08   Thanks for your responce. Actually, I plan to add a couple of topics in the future as other posters suggested (like manifests, for example). Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

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