SetupGetMultiSzFieldA function (setupapi.h)

Article
02/09/2023

[This function is available for use in the operating systems indicated in the Requirements section. It may be altered or unavailable in subsequent versions. SetupAPI should no longer be used for installing applications. Instead, use the Windows Installer for developing application installers. SetupAPI continues to be used for installing device drivers.]

The SetupGetMultiSzField function retrieves multiple strings stored in a line of an INF file, from the specified field to the end of the line.

Syntax

WINSETUPAPI BOOL SetupGetMultiSzFieldA(
  [in]      PINFCONTEXT Context,
  [in]      DWORD       FieldIndex,
  [in, out] PSTR        ReturnBuffer,
  [in]      DWORD       ReturnBufferSize,
  [in]      LPDWORD     RequiredSize
);

Parameters

[in] Context

Pointer to the context for a line in an INF file.

[in] FieldIndex

The 1-based index of the starting field within the specified line from which the strings should be retrieved. The string list is built from each field starting at this point to the end of the line. A FieldIndex of zero is not valid with this function.

[in, out] ReturnBuffer

Optional pointer to a character buffer that receives the strings. Each string is null-terminated, with an extra null at the end of the string list. The null-terminated string should not exceed the size of the destination buffer. You can call the function once to get the required buffer size, allocate the necessary memory, and then call the function a second time to retrieve the data. Using this technique, you can avoid errors due to an insufficient buffer size. See the Remarks section. This parameter can be NULL.

[in] ReturnBufferSize

Size of the buffer pointed to by ReturnBuffer, in characters. This includes the null terminator.

[in] RequiredSize

Optional pointer to a variable that receives the size required for the buffer pointed to by ReturnBuffer, in characters. This includes the null terminator. If the size needed is larger than the value specified by ReturnBufferSize, the function fails and a call to GetLastError returns ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is a nonzero value.

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

Remarks

If this function is called with a ReturnBuffer of NULL and a ReturnBufferSize of zero, the function puts the buffer size needed to hold the specified data into the variable pointed to by RequiredSize. If the function succeeds in this, the return value is a nonzero value. Otherwise, the return value is zero and extended error information can be obtained by calling GetLastError.

SetupGetMultiSzField should not be used to iterate through string values on an INF line. Instead you should use SetupGetStringField. SetupGetMultiSzField returns a value in the format of REG_MULTI_SZ. This is an array of null-terminated strings terminated by an extra null character. This format does not allow zero-length strings. If the list of strings contains any zero-length strings, SetupGetMultiSzField will return prematurely when it encounters the first blank string value.

Note

The setupapi.h header defines SetupGetMultiSzField 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 XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	setupapi.h
Library	Setupapi.lib
DLL	Setupapi.dll
API set	ext-ms-win-setupapi-inf-l1-1-1 (introduced in Windows 10, version 10.0.14393)