I have a TCHAR array in my C++ code which I want to assign static strings to it.
I set an initial string to it via
TCHAR myVariable[260] = TEXT("initial value");
Everything works fine on this. However, when I split it in two lines as in
TCHAR myVariable[260];
myVariable = TEXT("initial value");
it bugs and gives a compiler error:
error C2440: '=': cannot convert from 'const char [14]' to 'TCHAR [260]'
shouldn't the TEXT() function do exactly what I want here? convert the given string to TCHARs? Why does it work, when putting the two lines together? What do I have to change in order to get it working?
Some other confusing thing I have encountered:
I've searched the internet for it and have seen that there are also _T() and _TEXT() and __T() and __TEXT(). What are they for? Which of them should I use in what environment?
Answer
The reason the assignment doesn't work has very little to do with TCHARs and _T. The following won't work either.
char var[260];
var = "str"; // fails
The reason is that in C and C++ you can't assign arrays directly. Instead, you have to copy the elements one by one (using, for example, strcpy, or in your case _tcscpy).
strcpy(var, "str");
Regarding the second part of your question, TEXT, _T and the others are macros, that in Unicode builds turn a string literal to a wide-string literal. In non-Unicode builds they do nothing.