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StringCchCat (Windows CE 5.0)

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Developing an Application > Safe String Functions > Safe String Reference > StrSafe.h Character-Count Functions

This function is a replacement for strcat.

The size, in characters, of the destination buffer is provided to the function to ensure that StringCchCat does not write past the end of this buffer.

HRESULT StringCchCat(      
    LPTSTR pszDest,
    size_t cchDest,
    LPCTSTR pszSrc
);

Parameters

  • pszDest
    [in, out] Pointer to a buffer containing the string that pszSrc is concatenated to, and which contains the entire resultant string.

    The string at pszSrc is added to the end of the string at pszDest.

  • cchDest
    [in] Size of the destination buffer, in characters.

    This value must equal the length of pszSrc plus the length of pszDest plus 1 to account for both strings and the terminating null character.

    The maximum number of characters allowed is STRSAFE_MAX_CCH.

  • pszSrc
    [in] Pointer to a buffer containing the source string that is concatenated to the end of pszDest.

    This source string must be null-terminated.

Return Value

This function returns an HRESULT, as opposed to strcat, which returns a pointer.

It is strongly recommended that you use the SUCCEEDED and FAILED macros to test the return value of this function.

Value Description
S_OK Source data was present, the strings were fully concatenated without truncation, and the resultant destination buffer is null-terminated.
STRSAFE_E_INVALID_PARAMETER The value in cchDest is 0 or larger than STRSAFE_MAX_CCH, or the destination buffer is already full.
STRSAFE_E_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER The concatenation operation failed due to insufficient buffer space.

The destination buffer contains a truncated, null-terminated version of the intended result.

Where truncation is acceptable, this is not necessarily a failure condition.

Remarks

StringCchCat provides additional processing for proper buffer handling in your code.

Poor buffer handling is implicated in many security issues that involve buffer overruns. StringCchCat always null-terminates a nonzero-length destination buffer.

StringCchCat can be used in its generic form, or specifically as StringCchCatA (for ANSI strings) or StringCchCatW (for Unicode strings). The form to use is determined by your data.

String data type String literal Function
char "string" StringCchCatA
TCHAR TEXT("string") StringCchCat
WCHAR L"string" StringCchCatW

StringCchCat and its ANSI and Unicode variants are replacements for these functions:

Behavior is undefined if the strings pointed to by pszSrc and pszDest overlap.

Neither pszSrc nor pszDest should be NULL. See StringCchCatEx if you require the handling of null string pointer values.

Requirements

OS Versions: Windows CE 5.0 and later.
Header: strsafe.h.
Link Library: strsafe.lib.

See Also

StringCbCat | StringCchCatEx | StringCchCatN

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