LPNMITEMACTIVATE and code analysis (C26462) - visual-c++

Question

Why is it that in the source code in the SDK for LPNMITEMACTIVATE it is defined with the asterix to the left?
typedef struct tagNMITEMACTIVATE
{
NMHDR hdr;
int iItem;
int iSubItem;
UINT uNewState;
UINT uOldState;
UINT uChanged;
POINT ptAction;
LPARAM lParam;
UINT uKeyFlags;
} NMITEMACTIVATE, *LPNMITEMACTIVATE;
I am always used to the pointer being on the right. Either way, code like:
const LPNMITEMACTIVATE pNMItem = reinterpret_cast<LPNMITEMACTIVATE>(pNMHDR);
Will still flag a const (C26462) warning:
If I change the code to:
const NMITEMACTIVATE* pNMItem = reinterpret_cast<LPNMITEMACTIVATE>(pNMHDR);
The warning will go away.

Answer 1

I tried this with Visual Studio 2022, first of all, warning C26462 was not enabled by default. Perhaps you are using an earlier release, or there is something odd with my installation.
After manually enabling the warning, I could make that warning go away by assigning pNMItem more than once:
LPNMITEMACTIVATE pNMItem = nullptr;
pNMItem = reinterpret_cast<LPNMITEMACTIVATE>(pNMHDR);
How is this useful?
Or it can be fixed as suggested in other answers. But you may have additional problem because pNMHDR was probably declared as LPNMHDR, so you have to rewrite more lines:
NMHDR hdr = { 0 };
const NMHDR* pNMHDR = reinterpret_cast<NMHDR*>(&hdr);
const NMITEMACTIVATE* pNMItem = reinterpret_cast<const NMITEMACTIVATE*>(pNMHDR);
This can be a big waste of time. Note, the extra compliance is recommended if you are writing code that's supposed to run on any system. But MFC is tied to Windows so this isn't really an issue. MFC and Windows are still using that "long pointer" crap that's left over from 16-bit Windows, they are not compliant themselves, so consider turning off some of these warnings.

Answer 2

This is standard C/C++
Like in this (not runnable) code snippet:
typedef int *LPINT;
// typedef int* LPINT; // you could write this, it's exactly the
// the same as above
int main()
{
LPINT pint;
int* pint2;
*pint = *pint2;
}
pint and pint2 are both pointers to int. BTW this is hiding a pointer type behind a typedef, which is a bad idea (but was considered as a good idea in old MS days), but lots of Microsoft headers still have these typedef sometype *LPsometype; typedefs for compatibility reasons.
Another example which is closer to the MS header you're refering to:
This:
typedef struct tagNMITEMACTIVATE
{
int hdr;
int iItem;
} NMITEMACTIVATE, *LPNMITEMACTIVATE;
is equivalent to this:
typedef struct tagNMITEMACTIVATE
{
int hdr;
int iItem;
} NMITEMACTIVATE;
typedef struct tagNMITEMACTIVATE *LPNMITEMACTIVATE;

Answer 3

For pointer const can be applied to the type the pointer points at:
const NMITEMACTIVATE* p;
or
NMITEMACTIVATE const* p;
Or it can be applied to the pointer variable itself:
NMITEMACTIVATE* const p;
Now if you have typedef:
typedef NMITEMACTIVATE *PNMITEMACTIVATE;
The const would not apply to the type being pointed at. Either way it is the pointer itself is constant:
const PNMITEMACTIVATE p;
PNMITEMACTIVATE const p;
To avoid this confusion, prefer not to use raw pointer typedefs (and not to define them).