New to Windows Programming, having trouble with a block of code

Question

Can someone please tell me the problems with this piece of code? I'm bulding a windows app, not a console. Am I using the functions correctly. What types should I used? Okay I fixed semicolon err and else err? Still not working properly.

#include <windows.h>
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE thisin,HINSTANCE previn,LPSTR lpstr,INT int_)
{
    LPTSTR buffer;
    DWORD size;
    SetConsoleTitle("Console Title");
    if(!GetConsoleTitle(buffer,size))
        cout << "error" << endl;
    else cout << *buffer << endl; 

    system("Pause");
    return 0;
 }

Answer 1

It have 2 problems, first a ';' at end of if that is a C++ mistyping error and every body say it, but second is: for every API that get a buffer to return something, you should provide a valid buffer. Assume GetConsoleTitle implemented as:

BOOL GetConsoleTitle(LPTSTR p, DWORD dwSize)
{
    LPTSTR actualTitle = /* Get actual title from somewhere */;
    while (dwSize--)
    {
        *p++ = *actualTitle++;
        if (!*p++) return TRUE;
    }
    // Not enough buffer
    return FALSE;
}

Now look at your program, you pass an uninitialized LPTSTR to the function and as soon as API call *p++ = *actualTitle++ , it will cause a segmentation fault or Access violation . so in order to solve it, you must pass a valid buffer as first argument and since LPTSTR is a typedef of TCHAR* you should have:

const DWORD dwSize = 128;
TCHAR buffer[dwSize];
if (GetConsoleTitle(buffer, dwSize)) std::cout << "OK!" << std::endl;

Answer 2

First thing is first. Your statement prints whether there is an error or not. Use an else there:

if(!GetConsoleTitle(buffer,size))
    cout << "error" << endl;
else
    cout << *buffer << endl; 

and the ; after your if was a typo, I corrected it above.

Answer 3

You are using API's for Console App. Create a console app, copy this code to console project c or cpp source file and replace

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE thisin,HINSTANCE previn,LPSTR lpstr,INT int_)

with

int _tmain(int argc, char *argv[])

also remove ';' (semicolon) from 'if' statement.