Why does WinApi typedef basic datatypes?

Asked Oct 03 '18 at 11:09

Active Oct 03 '18 at 11:14

Viewed 353 times

So I was reading through some WinApi files and found these:

#define CALLBACK    __stdcall
#define WINAPI      __stdcall
#define WINAPIV     __cdecl
#define APIENTRY    WINAPI
#define APIPRIVATE  __stdcall
#define PASCAL      __stdcall

#define FAR                 far
#define NEAR                near

typedef float               FLOAT;
typedef int                 INT;
typedef unsigned int        UINT;

#define VOID void
typedef char CHAR;
typedef short SHORT;
typedef long LONG;

I also found this on Gdiplus' files:

typedef float REAL;

Why do libraries do this? Why do they want to typedef the most basic things with a new name of just the same but in all caps? Why do they define the same things multiple times? Seems really useless to me and just more confusing and annoying.

asked Oct 03 '18 at 11:09

Kordnak

It's their naming convention as WinAPI are C interfaces. – Ron Oct 03 '18 at 11:12
1

Related: https://stackoverflow.com/q/6669078/1606345 – David Ranieri Oct 03 '18 at 11:12
@KeineLust - Looks more like a proper dupe to me – StoryTeller - Unslander Monica Oct 03 '18 at 11:13
The winapi was released in 1985, meant to run on a 16-bit 8088 processor with 256KB of RAM. Ported to 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems with a variety of processor types over the years, a C program written in1985 is still pretty likely to compile and run today. These typedefs made that possible. – Hans Passant Oct 03 '18 at 11:34

Why does WinApi typedef basic datatypes?

0 Answers0