by Giovanni Dicanio
The Windows Registry C-interface API is very low-level and hard to use.
I developed some C++ wrappers around this low-level Win32 API, to raise the semantic level, using C++ classes like std::wstring, std::vector, etc. instead of raw C-style buffers and low-level mechanisms.
For example, the REG_MULTI_SZ registry type associated to double-NUL-terminated C-style strings is handled using a much easier higher-level vector<wstring>. My C++ code does the translation between high-level C++ STL-based stuff and low-level Win32 C-interface APIs.
The Win32 registry value types are mapped to C++ higher-level types according the following table:
| Win32 Registry Type | C++ Type |
|---|---|
REG_DWORD |
DWORD |
REG_SZ |
std::wstring |
REG_EXPAND_SZ |
std::wstring |
REG_MULTI_SZ |
std::vector<std::wstring> |
REG_BINARY |
std::vector<BYTE> |
NOTE: I did a few tests, according to which the code seems to work, but more tests are required. So please consider current library status kind of a beta version! Moreover, code and comments may require some further adjustments. Currently, the code compiles cleanly at /W4 in both 32-bit and 64-bit builds.
Being very busy right now, I preferred releasing this library on GitHub in current status; constructive feedback, bug reports, etc. are welcome.
I developed this code using Visual Studio 2015 with Update 3.
The library's code is split between a WinReg.hpp header (containing declarations and some inline implementations), and the WinReg.cpp source file with implementation code.
WinRegTest.cpp contains some demo/test code for the library: check it out for some sample usage.
The library exposes three main classes:
RegKey: a wrapper around raw Win32HKEYhandlesRegValue: a variant-style class representing registry values (currently supported registry types are:REG_DWORD,REG_SZ,REG_EXPAND_SZ,REG_MULTI_SZ,REG_BINARY)RegException: exception class to signal error conditions
In addition, there are various functions that wrap raw Win32 registry APIs.
The library stuff lives under the winreg namespace.
See the WinReg.hpp header for more details and documentation.