C2664 error stream.write unsigned char * - visual-c++

ostream &stream;
stream.write(SomeUnsignedCharStar, intSize);
error C2664 cannot convert parameter 1 from const unsigned char * to const char *
Is there an overload write for const unsigned char *?
I do not want to change SomeUnsignedCharStar because it is everywhere in the legacy code I inherited. This was compiled on VC6 with no complain. I am slowly upgrading the code to VS2003 and then VS2010 evantually.
What is the easiest and cleanest fix?

You can cast this without any issues. Strict aliasing allows casting pointers between unsigned and signed versions of the same type, as well as casting from any type to const char*, so you're safe here.

Related

Bison bug when passing functions as arguments to yyparse?

I am in the process of re-writing a parser in order to make it reentrant. In that spirit, I am interested in passing a couple of functions to bison and then have bison pass them to lex also.
One of those functions is a callback which I use in my actions and the other one is the the function to be called by flex to get input data.
To do so, I have put this in my .y file:
%lex-param {void (*my_input)(void *, char*, int *, int)}
%parse-param {void (*my_input)(void *, char*, int *, int)}
%parse-param {void *(*my_callback)(void *, char *, int, struct YYLTYPE *, int, ...)}
Then, in my .l file I have declared:
#define YY_DECL int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval_param, YYLTYPE *yylloc_param, yyscan_t yyscanner, void (*my_input)(void *, char*, int *, int))
The problem is that I think bison might have a bug when generating its code. When I try bo build, i get the following error:
tmp.tab.c: In function ‘yy_symbol_value_print’:
tmp.tab.c:4043: error: expected expression before ‘)’ token
If we visit that line we get this function:
static void
yy_symbol_value_print (FILE *yyoutput, int yytype, YYSTYPE const * const yyvaluep, YYLTYPE const * const yylocationp, yyscan_t scanner, void (*my_input)(void *, char*, int *, int), void *(*my_callback)(void *, char *, int, struct YYLTYPE *, int, ...))
{
FILE *yyo = yyoutput;
YYUSE (yyo);
YYUSE (yylocationp);
YYUSE (scanner);
YYUSE (int);
YYUSE (int);
if (!yyvaluep)
return;
YYUSE (yytype);
}
The first line with YYUSE(int) is the one throwing the error. As you can see, this function somehow receives the same arguments as yyparse, then it calls a macro called YYUSE() with the arguments received. I think that since two of my arguments are functions (with their arglist, as they have to be declared if I understand correctly) bison calls YYUSE() with the last argument of each of those function prototypes... as far as I know it should be USE(my_input) and USE(my_callback)...
I have a hard time believing this is really a bug, I mean, really, nobody has tried this until now? I find it hard to believe...
The YYUSE() calls are all over the generated files, even though I dont really know what they are for... So changing by hand is not really an option...
Has anybody done this successfully in the past? Is there something I am doing wrong?
Bison's parameter parser is a little primitive. It expects to see something like %param {type name}, and if it finds something more complicated, it may do the wrong thing. (type can be reasonably complicated; it can include const, *, and other such modifiers. But the name needs to be the last thing in the specification.)
This is documented in the Bison manual: (emphasis added)
Directive: %parse-param {argument-declaration} …
Declare that one or more argument-declaration are additional yyparse arguments. The argument-declaration is used when declaring functions or prototypes. The last identifier in argument-declaration must be the argument name.
A similar restriction applies to tagnames in a %union directive.
You can make your program more readable both for bison and for human readers by using typedefs:
Put this in a common header file:
typedef void (*InputFunction)(void *, char*, int *, int);
typedef void *(*CallbackFunction)(void *, char *, int, struct YYLTYPE *, int, ...);
Bison file:
%lex-param {InputFunction my_input}
%parse-param {InputFunction my_input} {CallbackFunction my_callback}
Flex file:
#define YY_DECL int yylex (YYSTYPE *yylval_param, YYLTYPE *yylloc_param, yyscan_t yyscanner, InputFunction my_input)
By the way, the intent of the YY_USE macro is to mark parameters as "used", even if they are not; this avoids compiler warnings in functions which happen not to use the arguments. It could be argued that it is the programmer's responsibility to ensure that arguments are either used or marked as unused, but that's not the approach bison happened to take. Regardless, non-conforming parameter declarations such as the one you provided will fail in other interesting ways, even without YY_USE.

creating LPCTSTR conversion operator

Trying to create LPCTSTR conversion operator for my class:
AuthData::operator LPCTSTR() const
{
const char* k = "aaaa";
return k;
}
Error: return value type does not match the function type
Why it don't match?
If Unicode Character Set is enabled, LPCTSTR type is const wchar_t *.
#Edit
You can read about these types here:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/194768
In a Multi-Byte project, LPCTSTR is defined as LPCSTR, which is CONST CHAR*, so your code should compile (if it is in fact non-Unicode).
NEVER mix TCHARs with chars! At least - not without a conversion. Your declaration practically implies that TCHAR is defined as char, so why would you suggest to the readers that you are TCHAR-aware (since you are not)?

Building in VC6, need unsigned long long

I need to build a purchased library (with source) that was built in VC 2010. We have to build with VC6. I ran across signed and unsigned "long long". I am using "_int64" for the signed type but was unable to find anything for the unsigned type. Has anyone run across a solution? Apologies if this is documented, I have had no luck in finding anything.
__int64 is a vendor-specific base type. It can be combined with the unsigned modifier, just like:
unsigned char unsigned __int8
unsigned short unsigned __int16
unsigned int unsigned __int32
unsigned long unsigned __int32
(unsigned long long) unsigned __int64
(unsigned __int128)
Where the parenthesized names are not available in VC6, but are supported in the current version of Visual C++.

How to convert BSTR string to Unsigned Char (Using com technology in the appln)

I am writing small application which uses com technology. I want to convert BSTR string to an unsigned char. To do this, i used W2A() Macro to convert from BSTR to String and then copied String.C_STR() to an unsigned char array. The code snippet is as follows:
Send(BSTR *packet, int length)
{
std::string strPacket = W2A(*packet);
unsigned char * pBuffer = new unsigned char [strPacket.length()+1];
memset(pBuffer,0,strPacket.length()+1);
memcpy(pBuffer,strPacket.c_str(),strPacket.length()+1);
}
This works fine when packet contains normal string. But if the packet contains a NUL character in it, the problem occurs. Some unknown characters appear after that NUL in the pBuffer i.e, after conversion.
Can anyone please let me know how to avoid that? Or is there any other way to do it correctly?
A BSTR is a Windows API type and must be managed with API macros or functions. If you cannot use W2A macro because your string may have null chars inside, you will have to use functions as WideCharToMultiByte that can convert from wide characters of BSTR to narrow chararacters for a char*. Be sure to have the SDK documentation. Alternatively, you could make you program use WCHARs

How to convert unsigned char to LPCTSTR in visual c++?

BYTE name[1000];
In my visual c++ project there is a variable defined name with the BYTE data type. If i am not wrong then BYTE is equivalent to unsigned char. Now i want to convert this unsigned char * to LPCTSTR.
How should i do that?
LPCTSTR is defined as either char const* or wchar_t const* based on whether UNICODE is defined or not.
If UNICODE is defined, then you need to convert the multi-byte string to a wide-char string using MultiByteToWideChar.
If UNICODE is not defined, a simple cast will suffice: static_cast< char const* >( name ).
This assumes that name is a null-terminated c-string, in which case defining it BYTE would make no sense. You should use CHAR or TCHAR, based on how are you operating on name.
You can also assign 'name' variable to CString object directly like:
CString strName = name;
And then you can call CString's GetBuffer() or even preferably GetString() method which is more better to get LPCTSTR. The advantage is CString class will perform any conversions required automatically for you. No need to worry about Unicode settings.
LPCTSTR pszName = strName.GetString();

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