Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!telesoft!garym
From: garym@telesoft.com (Gary Morris @nova)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Need help in THINK C
Summary: use PtoCstr to convert strings
Message-ID: <573@telesoft.com>
Date: 25 Oct 89 00:14:30 GMT
References: <5306@lindy.Stanford.EDU> <15790@netnews.upenn.edu> <2393@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.programming
Organization: TeleSoft, San Diego, CA.
Lines: 38

In article <2393@eagle.wesleyan.edu>, rsilverman@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
> In article <15790@netnews.upenn.edu>, parnes@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
>    (Gary Parnes) writes:
> > I have a problem...  How do you copy a string from a dialog EditText item
> > into a character array?  
> 
> ...In this case, the problem is probably this: the text for all text items
> in a dialog is kept in one big TextEdit record, managed by the Dialog
> Manager.  Use the GetIText (I think that's it) routine to retrieve the text
> from an item.  Remember, it will return it as a Pascal string, so you'll
> have to add the NUL yourself. 

Not only do you need to add a NUL (0) at the end, you must skip over the
length byte at the beginning of Pascal strings.  If you have a Pascal string
Pstr, you can pass it to a C routine, like so:

	Pstr[ Pstr[0] ] = (char) 0;	/* add the NUL on the end */

	strcpy( DestStr, &Pstr[1] );	/* copy string with first character */

Or if you don't want to modify the source string by adding a NUL on the end
you can use strncpy and specify the length to copy:

	strncpy( DestStr, &Pstr[1], (int) Pstr[0] );

Or with Think C you can use the supplied routine "PtoCstr" to convert a 
string from Pascal format to C format.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried these examples and I'm new to using C
on the Mac (I prefer TeleSoft Ada).  If these examples don't work I will
repair or replace them or refund your purchase price at my option.

--GaryM
-- 
Gary Morris      {uunet,ucsd}!telesoft!garym       TeleSoft
N6FRT            garym@telesoft.com                San Diego, CA, USA
ASEL             garym@nynashamn.telelogic.se      +1 619 457-2700
"If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right."