Console Application Issues - Win32 Programmer's Reference

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Console Application Issues

The 8-bit console functions use the OEM code page. All other functions use the ANSI code page by default. This means that strings returned by the console functions may not be processed correctly by the other functions and vice versa. For example, if FindFirstFileA returns a string that contains certain extended ANSI characters, WriteConsoleA will not display the string properly.

The best long-term solution for a console application is to use Unicode. Barring that solution, a console application should use the SetFileApisToOEM function. That function changes relevant Win32 file functions so that they produce OEM character set strings rather than ANSI character set strings.

Following are the Win32 file functions:

_lopen	GetDriveType	LoadLibrary
CopyFile	GetFileAttributes	LoadLibraryEx
CreateDirectory	GetFullPathName	MoveFile
CreateFile	GetModuleFileName	MoveFileEx
CreateProcess	GetModuleHandle	OpenFile
DeleteFile	GetSystemDirectory	RemoveDirectory
FindFirstFile	GetTempFileName	SearchPath
FindNextFile	GetTempPath	SetCurrentDirectory
GetCurrentDirectory	GetVolumeInformation	SetFileAttributes
GetDiskFreeSpace	GetWindowsDirectory

When dealing with command lines, a console application should obtain the command line in Unicode form and convert it to OEM form, using the relevant character-to-OEM functions. Note, also, that argv uses the ANSI character set.

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