LPCSTR, LPCTSTR and LPTSTR

c++ windows visual-c++ mfc
nothingMaster picture nothingMaster · Nov 26, 2008 · Viewed 159.1k times · Source

What the difference between LPCSTR, LPCTSTR and LPTSTR?

Why do we need to do this to convert a string into a LV / _ITEM structure variable pszText: 

LV_DISPINFO dispinfo;  
dispinfo.item.pszText = LPTSTR((LPCTSTR)string);

Answer

John Sibly picture John Sibly · Nov 26, 2008

To answer the first part of your question:

LPCSTR is a pointer to a const string (LP means Long Pointer)

LPCTSTR is a pointer to a const TCHAR string, (TCHAR being either a wide char or char depending on whether UNICODE is defined in your project)

LPTSTR is a pointer to a (non-const) TCHAR string

In practice when talking about these in the past, we've left out the "pointer to a" phrase for simplicity, but as mentioned by lightness-races-in-orbit they are all pointers.

This is a great codeproject article describing C++ strings (see 2/3 the way down for a chart comparing the different types)

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