C++ Win API function 'not declared in this scope'

Question

I'm trying to use GetNamedSecurityInfo() but I keep getting out of scope errors:

main.cpp:25:3: error: 'SDDL_REVISION_1' was not declared in this scope
   SDDL_REVISION_1, DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION, secDescBuffer, buflen);
   ^
main.cpp:25:68: error: 'ConvertSecurityDescriptorToStringSecurityDescriptor' was not declared in this scope
   SDDL_REVISION_1, DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION, secDescBuffer, buflen);

Here is the code:

#include "windows.h"
#include "sddl.h"
#include "aclapi.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    PACL pACL = NULL;

    DWORD dwRes = 0;
    PSECURITY_DESCRIPTOR pSecDesc = NULL;

    dwRes = GetNamedSecurityInfo(TEXT("C:\\somefile.txt"),
        SE_FILE_OBJECT, DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION,
        NULL, NULL, &pACL, NULL, &pSecDesc);

    if (ERROR_SUCCESS == dwRes) {

        LPTSTR * secDescBuffer = NULL;
        PULONG buflen = NULL;

        dwRes = ConvertSecurityDescriptorToStringSecurityDescriptor(pSecDesc,
            SDDL_REVISION_1, DACL_SECURITY_INFORMATION, secDescBuffer, buflen);

    } else {
        printf("GetNamedSecurityInfo Error %lu\n", dwRes);
    }
    ...

I know it uses the sddl.h header, and it definitely exists with no compile errors referring directly to it. What am I missing here?

edit: I am using netbeans and minGW toolchain. I have the Windows SDK, and have been using other parts just fine (like GetNamedSecurityInfo as shown in the example).

51 characters for one function name, sometimes they really overdo it... — Deduplicator, Aug 13 '14 at 00:16
I know right? I stared at it several times to make sure there was no typo. — Jordan Hanna, Aug 13 '14 at 00:19
Verbosity at its finest. Did you include the header and define WINVER & Co properly? — glank, Aug 13 '14 at 00:25
The header (to my knowledge) is sddl.h, which is included without errors. WINVER and such is defined by mingw (got warnings of redefining when I defined myself to check). — Jordan Hanna, Aug 13 '14 at 00:31
maybe missing WINVER macro definition?? try to `cout` it... or just add `#define WIN32` on top. — SHR, Aug 13 '14 at 00:33
Normally you would `#include ` etc (i.e. angle brackets rather than quotes) for system headers. — Jonathan Potter, Aug 13 '14 at 00:34
Debugging headers is a pain. The only possible cause I can think of is that the header is broken or incompatible, or mingw is setting WINVER to the wrong values. — glank, Aug 13 '14 at 00:37
What version of the Windows SDK do you have? Does the sddl.h file you include contain the SDDL_REVISION_1 var? If so, check the #ifdef's around it. — fileoffset, Aug 13 '14 at 00:46
Try to update MinGW, in the older versions these functions were missing. — SHR, Aug 13 '14 at 00:46

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 13 '14 at 01:12

1

SDDL_REVISION_1 is defined in sddl.h, but only if WINAPI_FAMILY is defined as WINAPI_FAMILY_DESKTOP_APP. The default value of WINAPI_FAMILY is apparently WINAPI_FAMILY_DESKTOP_APP, that is winapifamily.h defines it as WINAPI_FAMILY_DESKTOP_APP if it is not already defined.

My best guess is that you have defined WINAPI_FAMILY to something other than WINAPI_FAMILY_DESKTOP_APP.

edited Aug 13 '14 at 01:12

Remy Lebeau

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answered Aug 13 '14 at 00:50

Benilda Key

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:26

While many of the comments and Ben Key's answer led me to the right place, it came down to the fact that the Min in Mingw stands for minimal.

The sddl.h that I was using was actually coming from Mingw's include folder, not from my Windows SDK include. After looking at the sddl.h provided by Mingw, I noticed that it is a very minimal version, and is missing the prototypes and defines I need. This also explains why my code worked in MSVC for others.

Thank you all for the comments and answers that helped me figure this out!

Edit: This answer to another question outlines some of the issues when using both mingw and Win SDK includes.

Edit2: As Ben Key mentioned in his comment, mingw-builds has a version of sddl.h (and other includes) that is much more filled out than the one found in the original mingw. Mingw-builds is a merge with mingw-w64, and seems to be the most up-to-date (while still being mature) of the mingw options. You can read more about mingw-w64 here.

The version of sddl.h that comes with the version of MinGW available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/ (GCC 4.8.1) has SDDL_REVISION_1 and ConvertSecurityDescriptorToStringSecurityDescriptor defined. — Benilda Key, Aug 14 '14 at 04:57
You are right! Thank you for showing me this, I've learned quite a bit through dealing with this issue. — Jordan Hanna, Aug 15 '14 at 04:12

C++ Win API function 'not declared in this scope'

2 Answers2