Question

While browsing some code I found a call to OpenPrinter(). The code compiles and works fine. But, we are passing a HANDLE instead of LPHANDLE (as specified in MSDN). I found out that in windef.h the following declaration exists:

typedef HANDLE FAR          *LPHANDLE; 

What does LP stand for? Should I use a LPHANDLE, or keep HANDLE?

Answer 1

LP stands for Long Pointer. It’s a pointer to a handle in this case.

HANDLE h = <winapi function>(); LPHANDLE ph = &h; 

You can use it the same way you would a handle by dereferencing the pointer:

HANDLE anotherh = *ph; or <winapi function>(*ph, ...);