c++winapiwcharhungarian-notation

sz and pwsz prefixes in WinAPI

I'm a little confused now with the hungarian notation prefixes in WinAPI for CHAR strings and WCHAR strings. When we use a CHAR string usually such a prefix is used:

CHAR szString[] = "Hello";

We have a zero-terminated string szString so everything's fine. But when we use a WCHAR string usually such a prefix is used:

WCHAR pwszString[] = L"Hello";

It stands for pointer to zero-terminated wide string... but our type doesn't look like this. Pointer to zero-terminated wide string is WCHAR** or PWSTR*. Am I wrong? Why it's sz for CHAR strings and pwsz but not wsz for WCHAR strings?

Solution

  • The second example is misleading (though not uncommon). It should be either one of these two:

    WCHAR wszString[] = L"Hello";
WCHAR *pwszString = L"Hello";

    Since an array can be used in most contexts that a pointer is expected, some programmers get a little sloppy about the distinction.

    Hungarian is out of style, but it can be useful when used well.