Reputation: 43

Windows API functions

Are they standard code c or c++ code? what are they?

Upvotes: 4

Answers (4)

Hans Passant

Reputation: 942368

The original Win32 API is C-based. There are however a substantial number of services within Windows that are COM based. Good examples are the clipboard, drag+drop, the shell, the user mode driver framework, DirectX. While it is technically possible to write COM code in C, it is excruciatingly painful to do so.

Realistically you use C++ there. And a C++ class library to make the original C-based API less painful, especially for GUI code.

Upvotes: 5

Al Kepp

Reputation: 5980

Windows API is langugage neutral. It is neither C nor C++. Microsoft says that Windows itself is written mainly in C++, but you don't need any classes for vast majority of the API and even classes in API (e.g. in Direct X) can be used in pure C without classes.

Although some C programmers think it is a C library, compiler of a programming language must support proprietary Windows calling model, it is not a classic C calling convention. (Obviously almost each real world C compiler supports it nowadays.)

Upvotes: 0