Thread: Stupid windows...

  1. 11-25-2008 #1
    39ster
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    Stupid windows...

    Somewhere within my code (i think maybe the SDL or opengl library) i'm including windows.h and this stupid file has a crap load of reserved words! I've already come across three function names i've had to change because they conflict with a "#define" within windows.h or some other windows header. I don't need to call ANY windows function, only the cross platform libraries do. What can I do? I wan't to be able to create class methods called "GetClassName()" without it being interpeted as "GetClassNameA()".
  2. 11-25-2008 #2
    legit
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    Overload the windows functions so that the methods you want to use belong to your class. Your compiler should know which functions to call by the context of which they are used in.
  3. 11-25-2008 #3
    39ster
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    The precompiler changes GetClassName to GetClassNameA.

    Code:
    const std::string& className = items[i].GetItemClass()->GetClassName();
    \Player.cpp:282: error: 'const class ItemClass' has no member named 'GetClassNameA'
    Same with all the other words winuser.h defines
  4. 11-25-2008 #4
    legit
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    Hm....... What compiler are you using? I don't know myself how to turn the pre-compiler off but i'm sure many of the programmers on this board know how.
  5. 11-25-2008 #5
    39ster
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    I'm pretty sure turning the precompiler off would break everything. It's pretty much essential.
  6. 11-25-2008 #6
    legit
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    My bad, i'm pretty new myself
  7. 11-25-2008 #7
    matsp
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    Yes, and that's done by a macro, so one possibility is to do
    Code:
    #undef GetClassName
    in the file that declares that class.

    Naturally, there are other solutions, here is just a short list of suggestions:
    - Do not use that name (or any other Windows function name that deals with text strings, as all of those will have a Unicode/Wide declaration, and a ANSI/Ascii declaration - which is selected by the "UNICODE" macro.
    - Do not use windows.h in a header file that is included by other header files, or in conjunction with class defintions.
    - Edit windows.h (probably NOT a good idea).
    - Complain to Microsoft.

    None of these are entirely trivial to do, but I can't really come up with anything better.

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  8. 11-26-2008 #8
    iMalc
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    Either rename your functions, or move everything that has to include "Windows.h" into a seperate cpp file, so that you don't have to include it in your other code. The later may require a small amount of refactoring or creating of stub functions.
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  9. 11-26-2008 #9
    matsp
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    Quote Originally Posted by iMalc View Post
    Either rename your functions, or move everything that has to include "Windows.h" into a seperate cpp file, so that you don't have to include it in your other code. The later may require a small amount of refactoring or creating of stub functions.
    That was one of my suggestions too - and I think that's the best solution. As a side-effect, all code directly related to Windows will now be located in one or a few .cpp files, which makes it relatively easy to port to another OS, should that need to happen [or even port to different versions of Windows, if they are so different that they need special treatment].

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