Windows Typedef's

[valaris]

Why exactly does windows use so many typedefs? Are there any guarantees about these typedefs? IE same size from implementation to implementation? Otherwise some of them seem somewhat redundant, IE CHAR, PCHAR, BYTE, on and on.

I have tried to stick with these typedefs when writing windows apps but I suppose I've never stopped to think and ask, hey why am I doing it this way? Do I gain anything by using a DWORD over unsigned long, etc etc...

[brewbuck]

Why exactly does windows use so many typedefs? Are there any guarantees about these typedefs? IE same size from implementation to implementation? Otherwise some of them seem somewhat redundant, IE CHAR, PCHAR, BYTE, on and on.

I have tried to stick with these typedefs when writing windows apps but I suppose I've never stopped to think and ask, hey why am I doing it this way? Do I gain anything by using a DWORD over unsigned long, etc etc...

What you gain is consistency with all the other Windows-targetted code out there. You have to realize that most of this stuff came from the pre-32-bit days of Windows 3.0. Programmers were still used to reading/writing assembly code, and a 32-bit quantity was called a "DWORD."

As far as the various P* symbols, that's Hungarian notation, and yes, a lot of us hate it as well. However, when writing code for Windows I tend to stick to it as least as far as types are concerned, just so other people will understand what I've written.

Also, Windows programming has a long tradition of copy-paste, and since Microsoft's examples use these types, they end up in working code as well.

[adeyblue]

What's the difference between int and INT, long and LONG, etc?