The difference between characters and TCHARs

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the size of buffer through API returned descriped in MSDN,sometimes in character, sometimes in TCHARs, could you tell me the different between in characters and in TCHARs(on UNICODE project or on multibyte project).

Posted 25-Mar-11 6:56am

fkeujjpdc

Updated 25-Mar-11 9:30am

Nemanja Trifunovic

v2

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Richard MacCutchan 25-Mar-11 13:40pm

I don't know who voted this down or why; it seems a perfectly reasonable question.

Nuri Ismail 25-Mar-11 14:00pm

Yes, you are right Richard. His question is reasonable.

Maybe the fact that the answer could be easily found with a simple search motivated this down-vote, but the question is not a code request, therefore IMHO it does not deserve this down-vote.

I'll try to compensate with a 5, too.

Albert Holguin 25-Mar-11 21:34pm

my 5

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Solution 2

TCHAR is defined as char in a non-Unicode project, and as WCHAR (16 bit character) in a Unicode project. This allows the same code to be ported from non-Unicode to Unicode fairly easily.

Posted 25-Mar-11 7:42am

Richard MacCutchan

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 25-Mar-11 15:31pm

Correct, my 5.
--SA

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This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Nuri Ismail · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-25T07:07:00

Solution 1

Have a look at this[^] nice CP Tip/Trick. TCHAR is well explained there. :)

Posted 25-Mar-11 7:07am

Nuri Ismail

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 25-Mar-11 15:31pm

Seems to be a good reference. These types is a permanent source of confusion. My 5.
--SA

Nuri Ismail 25-Mar-11 17:41pm

Thank you, SA.

Albert Holguin 25-Mar-11 21:10pm

great link!

Albert Holguin 25-Mar-11 21:12pm

to supplement the answer.... a lot of times when you see a name with all caps, as in TCHAR, its an indication of a macro

[no name] 26-Mar-11 0:11am

Good link

mbue · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-25T08:45:00

For the first: TCHAR is not a type themselves - its a placeholder for the character type you use. This can be:
* unicode characters (unsigned short or wchar_t)
* ANSI characters (char).
this depends on your project settings. You can plan your module to support both of them. Therefore you have to generate a project configuration for each. But now what can do TCHAR for you? if you use TCHAR as type for character or string operations you can compile both versions in the same way. The only thing you have to is to include <tchar.h> that maps (#define) the necessary function for you.
i.e.:
* _tcscmp: strcmp or wcscmp
* _tcslen: strlen or wcslen
* and so on.
Regards.

The difference between characters and TCHARs

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The difference between characters and TCHARs

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