Extending CStringArray

Introduction

One of the reasons I left C and began to use C++ was CString and even more so CStringArray. These two classes are worth all the other aggravation when going OO. I don't claim that they are perfect. There are things missing in both of those classes and I would like to share this extension of CStringArray that I have made.

Finding an string in a CStringArray

One of the things that I think are missing in CStringArray is a Find method. I find myself wanting to get a specific string out of the array and I know part, or the whole, of it. Not the position in the array. So I added this method. It is very straight forward and uses CString::Find to find the string.

Example:

	meStringArray arr;
	
	// fill the array with strings using the normal Add()

	arr.Add("This is a String");
	arr.Add("The second string");
	arr.Add("the 3:rd string");
	
	// find the third string

   	int i=arr.Find("3:rd");
   	
   	// i is now 2

   	CString sBuf;
   	
   	sBuf=arr.GetAt(i);
   	
   	// sBuf has now the value of "the 3:rd string"

Array of NULL terminating strings

Some SDK-functions and some classes still using an array of NULL terminating strings. e.g. CFileDialog uses this kind of array for the filters. GetProfileString("section",NULL,"",buf,sizeof(buf)); also uses it, and there are many more. So every time you need to use this class/function you have to go back to C and do a lot of loops. Well I finally got tired of it and extended CStringArray with two methods; AddBuf() and GetBuf(). The first will take an array of NULL terminating strings and add it to the StringArray, and the second will do the reverse

Example GetBuf:

	CFileDialog dlg;
	meStringArray filter;
	
	// init filter

	filter.Add("All files");
	filter.Add("*.*");
	filter.Add("Doc files");
	filter.Add("*.doc");
	filter.Add("Text files");
	filter.Add("*.txt");
	
	// Init file dialog

	dlg.m_ofn.lpstrFilter=filter.GetBuf();			
	dlg.m_ofn.lpstrInitialDir=initDir;
	dlg.m_ofn.Flags |= OFN_SHAREAWARE;
	int rc=dlg.DoModal();
	if(rc==IDOK)
	{
		m_filepath=dlg.GetPathName();
		UpdateData(FALSE);
	}

Example AddBuf:

	meStringArray arr;
	char buf[1024];
	
	// Get all printer names

	GetProfileString("devices",NULL,"",buf,sizeof(buf));	
	
	// add them to the array

	arr.AddBuf(buf);
	
	// Get the second printer name from the array

	CString sPrintName = arr.GetAt(2);

Well that's it! It's not a very large class so there is not so much to say. I hope that someone will find use for this and PLEASE let me know what you think! This is the first class I ever published so please say what you think about it, good, bad.

// Anders