AssocQueryStringByKeyW function (shlwapi.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Searches for and retrieves a file association-related string from the registry starting from a specified key.

Syntax

LWSTDAPI AssocQueryStringByKeyW(
  [in]            ASSOCF   flags,
  [in]            ASSOCSTR str,
  [in]            HKEY     hkAssoc,
  [in, optional]  LPCWSTR  pszExtra,
  [out, optional] LPWSTR   pszOut,
  [in, out]       DWORD    *pcchOut
);

Parameters

[in] flags

Type: ASSOCF

The flags that can be used to control the search. It can be any combination of ASSOCF values, except that only one ASSOCF_INIT value can be included.

[in] str

Type: ASSOCSTR

The ASSOCSTR value that specifies the type of string that is to be returned.

[in] hkAssoc

Type: HKEY

The HKEY value of the key that will be used as a root key. The search looks only below this key.

[in, optional] pszExtra

Type: LPCTSTR

A pointer to an optional null-terminated string with additional information about the location of the string. It is normally set to a Shell verb such as open. Set this parameter to NULL if it is not used.

[out, optional] pszOut

Type: LPTSTR

A pointer to a null-terminated string used to return the requested string. Set this parameter to NULL to retrieve the required buffer size.

[in, out] pcchOut

Type: DWORD*

A pointer to a value that, on entry, specifies the number of characters in the pszOut buffer. When the function returns, it points to the number of characters placed in the buffer.

If the ASSOCF_NOTRUNCATE flag is set in flags and the buffer specified in pszOut is too small, the function returns E_POINTER and the value is set to the required size of the buffer.

If pszOut is NULL, the function returns S_FALSE and pcchOut points to the required size of the buffer.

Return value

Type: HRESULT

Returns a standard COM error value, including the following:

Error	Meaning
S_OK	Success.
E_POINTER	The pszOut buffer is too small to hold the entire string.
S_FALSE	pszOut is NULL. pcchOut contains the required buffer size.

Remarks

This function is a wrapper for the IQueryAssociations interface. It is intended to simplify the process of using this interface. For further discussion of how the file association functions work, see IQueryAssociations.

Note

The shlwapi.h header defines AssocQueryStringByKey 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, Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	shlwapi.h
Library	Shlwapi.lib
DLL	Shlwapi.dll (version 5.0 or later)

Share via