Fetching the name of your Windows Phone 8

Introduction

If you are familiar with C++/CX code and you want to build a Windows Phone 8 application that names or gets the name of your Windows Phone 8 device, you are at the right place.

Using the code

Windows Phone 8 provides developers with a rich API that allows them to name their phone whatever they like and they can display the name of their application.

So, here is some C++/CX code to show exactly:

Platform::String ^ DeviceName::PhoneName::get()
{
    WSADATA wsadata;
    ADDRINFOA *result = nullptr;
    int error;
    wchar_t wszName[256] = L"Unknown";
    ADDRINFOA hints = {};
 
    hints.ai_flags = AI_CANONNAME;
 
    error = WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsadata);
    if (error==0)
    {
        error = ::getaddrinfo("", "0", &hints, &result);
        if (error==0)
        {
            char *name = result->ai_canonname;
            if (name!=nullptr)
            {
                MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, name, strlen(name), wszName, 256);
            }
        }
    }
 
    ::freeaddrinfo(result);
 
    return ref new Platform::String(wszName);
}

If you have no experience with C++/CX on the phone don't worry, you can follow these simple steps.

Load your C# project into Visual Studio 2012. Right click on the Solution then add then New Project, then Visual C++, then Windows Phone, then Windows Phone Runtime Component, and call it NetFred.

In pch.h, add:

#include <windows.h>
#include <winsock2.h>
#include <ws2tcpip.h> 

Replace NetFred.h with this simple ref class containing a single static property:

#pragma once
 
namespace NetFred
{
    public ref class DeviceName sealed
    {
    public:
        static property Platform::String ^ PhoneName
        {
            Platform::String ^ get();
        }
    };
}

Replace NetFred.cpp with the code at the start of the article, prefixed with this:

#include "pch.h"
#include "NetFred.h"
 
using namespace NetHelper;
using namespace Platform;
 
#pragma comment(lib, "ws2_32.lib")

Build the NetFred project.

Right click on your C# project's References tree, then Add Reference, then Solution, then add a checkmark next to NetFred, then OK.

In C#, you can now use it:

var name = NetFred.DeviceName.PhoneName; 

Great, we are finished!

Any comments are welcome.