8. Windows API Overview

I. Functions of Windows APIs

1. Basic System Services

File System: File Operations, disk volume management, etc.

Memory Management: memory allocation, and paging.

Processes, threads, and modules

Device Io, DriverProgramControl

Debugging and error handling

Windows system information: includes registry operations and other basic information.

Inter-process communication: shared files, messages, mail slots, pipelines, and network sharing

Timer and Message Mechanism

2. System Management

Console interfaces, program installation, system recovery, and task scheduling.

3. User Interface

There are two aspects: Windows Shell and Windows Graphical User Interface

4. Images and multimedia

Including GDI, OpenGL, and dircetx.

5. Network

TCP/UDP socket, HTTP, etc.

6. System Security

System Authorization and authentication, logon, permission management, encryption, and security management policies.

7. Others

Such as data storage and access, database

Messages and collaboration

Web Development

Ii. Core DLL

Kernel32.dll System Basic Service API

User32.dll graphical user interface API

Gdi32.dll interface functions in Windows graphics engine, Application Design Interface

Function interfaces of the C standard library in windows are mainly stored in crtdll. dll. (C Runtime)

Iii. Unicode and multi-byte

● UNICODE: 16-bit represents a single character, a total of 65535 characters.

● Traditional Character Set windows asni: uses a combination of eight or two adjacent eight-bit data to represent special language characters. Windows adopts the asni character extension mode. If a byte is a negative number, a subsequent byte is combined to represent a character. This encoding method is also called the "Multi-Byte" character set.

Lpstr a 32-bit pointer to a character string.

Lptstr a 32-bit pointer to a character string that is portable for Unicode and DBCS.

Lpwstr a 32-bit pointer to a string of 16-bit Unicode characters, which may be null-terminated.

DBCS double-byte character set

 ●Unicode and ASCII Conversion 

Widechartomultibyte Unicode> ASCII 

Multibytetowidechar ASCII> Unicode 

Unicodetobytes

Reference [1] proficient in Windows API functions, interfaces, and programming instances