PMGuide - How to Use this Book

Conventions Used in this Book

The purpose of this reference is to give important information about functions, messages, constants, and data types. It provides language-dependent information about the functions which enables the user to call functions in the C programming language.

The following information is provided:

• The syntax and parameters for each function
• The syntax of each data type and structure

Notation Conventions

The following notation conventions are used in this reference:

NULL

The term NULL applied to a parameter is used to indicate the presence of the pointer parameter, but with no value.

NULLHANDLE

The term NULLHANDLE applied to a parameter is used to indicate the presence of the handle parameter, but with no value.

Implicit Pointer

If no entry for a data type "Pxxxxxxx" is found in then it is implicitly a pointer to the data type "xxxxxxx". See Implicit Pointer Data Types for more information about implicit pointers.

Constant Names

All constants are written in uppercase to match the header files. Where applicable, constant names have a prefix derived from the name of a function, message, or idea associated with the constant. For example:

WM_CREATE Window message 
SV_CXICON System value 
CF_TEXT Clipboard format. 

In this book, references to a complete set of constants with a given prefix is written as shown in the following examples:

Window message WM_* 
System value SV_* 

Parameters and Fields

Function parameters and data structure fields are shown in italics.

Conventions Used in Function Descriptions

The documentation of each function contains these sections:

Syntax

The function syntax describes the C-language calling syntax of the function and gives a brief description.

Programming Note

The functions in this book are spelled in mixed-case for readability but are known to the system as uppercase character strings. For example, the function "GPIBeginArea" is actually the external name "GPIBEGINAREA".

If you are using a compiler that generates a mixed-case external name, you should code the functions in uppercase.

Parameters

Each parameter is listed with its C-language data type, parameter type, and a brief description.

• All data types are written in uppercase to match the header files. A data type of "Pxxxxxxx" implicitly defines a pointer to the data type "xxxxxxx".

The term NULL applied to a parameter indicates the presence of the parameter, with no value.

Refer to for a complete list of all data types and their descriptions.

• There are three parameter types:

Input Specified by the programmer.

Output Returned by the function.

Input/Output Specified by the programmer and modified by the function.

• A brief description is provided with each parameter. Where appropriate, restrictions are also included. In some cases, the parameter points to a structure.

Returns

A list of possible return codes or errors (when appropriate) is included in this section. Some functions do not have return codes. Refer to for a list of error codes and their numerical values, and for a list of error codes and their descriptions.

For some functions, this section includes a statement that the function requires a message queue. This means that, before issuing a call, WinCreateMsgQueue must be issued by the same thread. For other functions, no previous WinCreateMsgQueue is required, and it is only necessary to issue WinInitialize from the same thread.

Remarks

This section contains additional information about the function, when required.

Related Functions

This list shows the functions (if any) that are related to the function being described.

Example Code

An example of how the function can be used is shown in C language.