|< Windows Process & Threads Programming 8 | Main | Windows Process & Threads Programming 10 >| Site Index | Download |

---

 

MODULE U3

PROCESSES AND THREADS: Win32/WINDOWS APIs

Part 9: More Program Examples

 

 

My Training Period:          hours   Note:  ...Continuation from previous Module...Program examples compiled using Win32 console mode application of the Visual C++ .Net (Visual studio .Net 2003).  It is low-level programming and the .Net used is Unmanaged (/clr is not set: Project menu → your_project_name Properties… sub menu → Configuration Properties folder → General subfolder → Used Managed Extension setting set to No).  This also applied to other program examples in other Modules of tenouk.com Tutorial that mentioned “compiled using Visual C++ .Net”.  Other settings are default.  Machine’s OS is standalone Win Xp SP2.  Program examples have been tested for Non Destructive Test :o).  All information recomposed for Win 2000 (NT5.0) above.   WARNING   Wrongly modified and run the program examples presented here might collapse your Windows machine or disturb its integrity.  So for your Windows machine safety, make sure you fulfill the following conditions:   Already read, understood and agreed to tenouk.com small disclaimer. Must be familiar with Windows OSes mainly NT5 (Windows 2000 above). Must be fluent in the following C topics: Function, Array, Pointer, String and Structure. Then, the basic knowledge of the Microsoft C Run-Time (CRT) and Win32 Programming using C. Do not mess up your system (Get a test machine! And run the program examples on the test machine). Must understand what you are going to do with the Windows APIs. Functions and structure used in the program examples were dumped at Functions & structure. Other related and required information (if any) not available in no. 7 can be found at MSDN Online.   Abilities   ▪             Able to understand and use various processes and threads functions (Windows APIs/Win32). ▪             Able to build and run your own simple Windows processes and threads programs. ▪             Able to understand, build and run your own simple multithreading programs. ▪             Able to extract, understand and use functions information from MSDN documentation.   Note: For Multithreaded program examples, you have to set your project to Multithread project type.   Index   Changing Environment Variables. Waiting for Multiple Objects.

 

Changing Environment Variables

 

Each process has an environment block associated with it. The environment block consists of a null-terminated block of null-terminated strings (meaning there are two null bytes at the end of the block), where each string is in the form:

 

name=value

 

All strings in the environment block must be sorted alphabetically by name. The sort is case-insensitive, Unicode order, without regard to locale. Because the equal sign is a separator, it must not be used in the name of an environment variable.  By default, a child process inherits a copy of the environment block of the parent process. The following example demonstrates how to create a new environment block to pass to a child process.

 

// For WinXp

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0501

#include <windows.h>

#include <stdio.h>

// Make sure do not exceed the maximum of the environment block size

// supported by your Windows OS version...else there will be an error

// message...

#define BUFSIZE 1024

 

void MyErrorExit(LPTSTR lpszMessage)

{

   fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", lpszMessage);

   // Exit peacefully...

   ExitProcess(0);

}

 

int main()

{

LPTSTR lpszCurrentVariable;

TCHAR tchNewEnv[BUFSIZE];

BOOL fSuccess;

 

STARTUPINFO siStartInfo;

PROCESS_INFORMATION piProcInfo;

 

ZeroMemory(&siStartInfo, sizeof(siStartInfo));

siStartInfo.cb = sizeof(siStartInfo);

ZeroMemory(&piProcInfo, sizeof(piProcInfo));

 

// Copy environment strings into an environment block.

lpszCurrentVariable = tchNewEnv;

 

if (lstrcpy(lpszCurrentVariable, "MyTestVersion=SP 2.0") == NULL)

       MyErrorExit("lstrcpy() for new environment string failed.");

else

       printf("lstrcpy() for new environment string is OK.\n");

 

lpszCurrentVariable += lstrlen(lpszCurrentVariable) + 1;

 

if (lstrcpy(lpszCurrentVariable, "MyTestSetting=TestValue") == NULL)

       MyErrorExit("lstrcpy() for new environment string failed.");

else

       printf("lstrcpy() for new environment string is OK.\n");

 

// Terminate the block with a NULL byte.

lpszCurrentVariable += lstrlen(lpszCurrentVariable) + 1;

 

*lpszCurrentVariable = '\0';

 

// Create the child process, specifying a new environment block.

fSuccess = CreateProcess(NULL, "c:\\windows\\system32\\mem.exe", NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0,

   (LPVOID) tchNewEnv,        // new environment block, here just 2 entries, a dummy...

   NULL, &siStartInfo, &piProcInfo);

 

if (!fSuccess)

       MyErrorExit("CreateProcess(), with new environment block failed.");

else

       printf("CreateProcess(), with new environment block is OK.\n");

 

return 0;

}

 

Just click the Close button.  Our two environment variables in the block are not complete, not for Win32 (32 bit), hence not usable for Windows OS, just for testing.

 

 

 

 

If you want the child process to inherit most of the parent's environment with only a few changes:

 

1. Save the current values,
2. Make changes for the child process to inherit,
3. Create the child process, and then
4. Restore the saved values,

 

 As shown in the following code.  For our testing and playing, the following environment variable has been added.

 

C:\>set MYTESTVAR=mystringvalue

 

 

 

// For WinXp

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0501

#include <windows.h>

#include <stdio.h>

#define BUFSIZE 4029

 

void MyErrorExit(LPTSTR lpszMessage)

{

   fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", lpszMessage);

   // Exit peacefully...

   ExitProcess(0);

}

 

int main()

{

LPTSTR lpszOldValue;

TCHAR tchBuf[BUFSIZE];

BOOL fSuccess;

STARTUPINFO siStartInfo;

PROCESS_INFORMATION piProcInfo;

 

ZeroMemory(&siStartInfo, sizeof(siStartInfo));

siStartInfo.cb = sizeof(siStartInfo);

ZeroMemory(&piProcInfo, sizeof(piProcInfo));

 

// lpszOldValue gets current value of "MYTESTVAR", or NULL if "MYTESTVAR"

// environment variable does not exist. Set "MYTESTVAR" to new value ("mynewstringvalue"),

// create child process, then use SetEnvironmentVariable() to restore

// original value of "MYTESTVAR". If lpszOldValue is NULL, the "MYTESTVAR"

// variable will be deleted.

lpszOldValue = ((GetEnvironmentVariable("MYTESTVAR", tchBuf, BUFSIZE) > 0) ? tchBuf : NULL);

 

// Set a new value for the child process to inherit, "mynewstringvalue".

if (!SetEnvironmentVariable("MYTESTVAR", "mynewstringvalue"))

       MyErrorExit("SetEnvironmentVariable() for child process failed.");

else

       printf("SetEnvironmentVariable() for child process is OK.\n");

 

// Create a child process.

fSuccess = CreateProcess(NULL, "c:\\windows\\system32\\mem.exe", NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0,

   NULL,     // inherit parent's environment

   NULL, &siStartInfo, &piProcInfo);

if (!fSuccess)

       MyErrorExit("CreateProcess(), child failed.");

else

       printf("CreateProcess(), child is OK.\n");

 

// Restore the parent's environment.

if (!SetEnvironmentVariable("MYTESTVAR", lpszOldValue))

       MyErrorExit("SetEnvironmentVariable(), restore the parent's environment variables failed.");

else

       printf("CreateProcess(), restore the parent's environment variables is OK.\n");

 

return 0;

}

 

 

 

Finally, don’t forget to delete our environment variable used in this testing by providing empty variable string as shown below.

 

C:\>set MYTESTVAR=

 

Note that altering the environment variables of a child process during process creation is the only way one process can directly change the environment variables of another process. A process can never directly change the environment variables of another process that is not a child of that process.

The following example, taken from a console process, prints the contents of the process's environment block.

 

// For WinXp

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0501

#include <windows.h>

#include <stdio.h>

 

void MyErrorExit(LPTSTR lpszMessage)

{

   fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", lpszMessage);

   // Exit peacefully...

   ExitProcess(0);

}

 

int main(int argc, char argv[])

{

LPTSTR lpszVariable;

LPVOID lpvEnv;

 

// Get a pointer to the environment block.

lpvEnv = GetEnvironmentStrings();

 

// If the returned pointer is NULL, exit.

if (lpvEnv == NULL)

   MyErrorExit("GetEnvironmentStrings() failed.");

else

   printf("GetEnvironmentStrings() is OK.\n\n");

 

// Variable strings are separated by NULL byte, and the block is

// terminated by a NULL byte.

for (lpszVariable = (LPTSTR) lpvEnv; *lpszVariable; lpszVariable++)

{

   while (*lpszVariable)

      putchar(*lpszVariable++);

   putchar('\n');

}

 

if(FreeEnvironmentStrings((LPSTR)lpvEnv) == 0)

    printf("GetEnvironmentStrings() failed.\n");

else

    printf("\nGetEnvironmentStrings() is OK.\n");

 

return 0;

}

 

 

Waiting for Multiple Objects

 

The following example uses the CreateEvent() function to create two event objects. It then uses the WaitForMultipleObjects() function to wait for the state of one of the objects to be set to signaled.

 

// For WinXp

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0501

#include <windows.h>

#include <stdio.h>

 

int main()

{

HANDLE hEvents[2];

DWORD i, dwEvent;

 

// Create two event objects.

for (i = 0; i < 2; i++)

{

    hEvents[i] = CreateEvent(

        NULL,   // no security attributes

        FALSE,  // auto-reset event object

        FALSE,  // initial state is non-signaled

        NULL);  // unnamed object

 

    if (hEvents[i] == NULL)

    {

        printf("CreateEvent() error: %d\n", GetLastError());

        ExitProcess(0);

    }

    else

       printf("CreateEvent() #%d is OK.\n", i);

}

 

// The creating thread waits for other threads or processes

// to signal the event objects.

dwEvent = WaitForMultipleObjects(

    2,           // number of objects in array

    hEvents,     // array of objects

    FALSE,       // wait for any

    5000);       // 5000 ms

 

// Return value indicates which event is signaled.

switch (dwEvent)

{

    // hEvent[0] was signaled.

    case WAIT_OBJECT_0 + 0:

              {

                     // TODO: Perform tasks required by this event.

                     printf("hEvent[%d] was signaled.\n", i);

                     break;

              }

 

    // hEvent[1] was signaled.

    case WAIT_OBJECT_0 + 1:

              {

                   // TODO: Perform tasks required by this event.

                   printf("hEvent[%d] was signaled.\n", i);

                   break;

              }

 

    // Return value is invalid.

    default:

        printf("Wait error: %d\n", GetLastError());

        // Exit peacefully...

        ExitProcess(0);

}

return 0;

}

 

 

 

 

-----------------------------------------------End: Processes & Threads program examples--------------------------------------------

 

More... Next Module...

 

www.tenouk.com