playing files after accepting them through open dialog box - winapi

Question

I am a new member and joined this site after referring to it loads of times when i was stuck with some programming problems. I am trying to code a media player (Win32 SDK VC++ 6.0) for my college project and I am stuck. I have searched on various forums and msdn and finally landed on the function GetShortPathName which enables me to play through folders and files which have a whitespace in their names. I will paste the code here so it will be much more clearer as to what i am trying to do.
case IDM_FILE_OPEN :
ZeroMemory(&ofn, sizeof(ofn));
ofn.lStructSize = sizeof(ofn);
ofn.hwndOwner = hwnd;
ofn.lpstrFilter = "Media Files (All Supported Types)\0*.avi;*.mpg;*.mpeg;*.asf;*.wmv;*.mp2;*.mp3\0"
"Movie File (*.avi;*.mpg;*.mpeg)\0*.avi;*.mpg;*.mpeg\0"
"Windows Media File (*.asf;*.wmv)\0*.asf;*.wmv\0"
"Audio File (*.mp2;*.mp3)\0*.mp2;*.mp3\0"
"All Files(*.*)\0*.*\0";
ofn.lpstrFile = szFileName;
ofn.nMaxFile = MAX_PATH;
ofn.Flags = OFN_EXPLORER | OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST | OFN_HIDEREADONLY | OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT | OFN_CREATEPROMPT;
ofn.lpstrDefExt = "mp3";
if(GetOpenFileName(&ofn))
{
length = GetShortPathName(szFileName, NULL, 0);
buffer = (TCHAR *) malloc (sizeof(length));
length = GetShortPathName(szFileName, buffer, length);
for(i = 0 ; i < MAX_PATH ; i++)
{
if(buffer[i] == '\\')
buffer[i] = '/';
}
SendMessage(hList,LB_ADDSTRING,0,(LPARAM)buffer);
mciSendString("open buffer alias myFile", NULL, 0, NULL);
mciSendString("play buffer", NULL, 0, NULL);
}
return 0;
using the GetShortPathName function i get the path as : D:/Mp3z/DEEPBL~1/03SLEE~1.mp3
Putting this path directly in Play button case
mciSendString("open D:/Mp3jh/DEEPBL~1/03SLEE~1.mp3 alias myFile", NULL, 0, NULL);
mciSendString("play myFile", NULL, 0, NULL);
the file opens and plays fine. But as soon as i try to open and play it through the open file dialog box, nothing happens. Any input appreciated.

Answer 1

It looks like the problem is that you're passing the name of the buffer variable to the mciSendString function as a string, rather than passing the contents of the buffer.
You need to concatenate the arguments you want to pass (open and alias myFile) with the contents of buffer.
The code can also be much simplified by replacing malloc with an automatic array. You don't need to malloc it because you don't need it outside of the block scope. (And you shouldn't be using malloc in C++ code anyway; use new[] instead.)
Here's a modified snippet of the code shown in your question:
(Warning: changes made using only my eyes as a compiler! Handle with care.)
if(GetOpenFileName(&ofn))
{
// Get the short path name, and place it in the buffer array.
// We know that a short path won't be any longer than MAX_PATH, so we can
// simply allocate a statically-sized array without futzing with new[].
//
// Note: In production code, you should probably check the return value
// of the GetShortPathName function to make sure it succeeded.
TCHAR buffer[MAX_PATH];
GetShortPathName(szFileName, buffer, MAX_PATH);
// Add the short path name to your ListBox control.
//
// Note: In C++ code, you should probably use C++-style casts like
// reinterpret_cast, rather than C-style casts!
SendMessage(hList, LB_ADDSTRING, 0, reinterpret_cast<LPARAM>(buffer));
// Build the argument string to pass to the mciSendString function.
//
// Note: In production code, you probably want to use the more secure
// alternatives to the string concatenation functions.
// See the documentation for more details.
// And, as before, you should probably check return values for error codes.
TCHAR arguments[MAX_PATH * 2]; // this will definitely be large enough
lstrcat(arguments, TEXT("open"));
lstrcat(arguments, buffer);
lstrcat(arguments, TEXT("alias myFile"));
// Or, better yet, use a string formatting function, like StringCbPrintf:
// StringCbPrintf(arguments, MAX_PATH * 2, TEXT("open %s alias myFile"),
// buffer);
// Call the mciSendString function with the argument string we just built.
mciSendString(arguments, NULL, 0, NULL);
mciSendString("play myFile", NULL, 0, NULL);
}
Do note that, as the above code shows, working with C-style strings (character arrays) is a real pain in the ass. C++ provides a better alternative, in the form of the std::string class. You should strongly consider using that instead. To call Windows API functions, you'll still need a C-style string, but you can get one of those by using the c_str method of the std::string class.