GlobalFindAtomA function (winbase.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Searches the global atom table for the specified character string and retrieves the global atom associated with that string.

Syntax

ATOM GlobalFindAtomA(
  [in] LPCSTR lpString
);

Parameters

[in] lpString

Type: LPCTSTR

The null-terminated character string for which to search.

Alternatively, you can use an integer atom that has been converted using the MAKEINTATOM macro. See the Remarks for more information.

Return value

Type: ATOM

If the function succeeds, the return value is the global atom associated with the given string.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

Even though the system preserves the case of a string in an atom table as it was originally entered, the search performed by GlobalFindAtom is not case sensitive.

If lpString was created by the MAKEINTATOM macro, the low-order word must be in the range 0x0001 through 0xBFFF. If the low-order word is not in this range, the function fails.

Note

The winbase.h header defines GlobalFindAtom as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winbase.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll