Error 429 confusion

[Earl Hackett]

I'm trying to use a 3rd party dll for the first time in PBCC. When

DECLARE FUNCTION OpenDIO LIB "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SeaIo32.dll" ALIAS SeaIo_OpenDevice (CardNum AS WORD, @hDIO AS DWORD) AS DWORD

compiles I get an Error 429 "String constant expected." I'm not sure what it's trying to tell me. As far as I can tell there are no spelling errors. A little push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

[Michael Mattias]

> A little push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

I'd take another look at the ALIAS clause in your DECLARE statement.

I'd also look at what constitutes a valid variable name, because after you fix the first error you will get one on that.

[Earl Hackett]

Thanks. I fixed the string problem and ran into some more, but they are pretty clear as to the cause.

[Michael Mattias]

Just as an information thing....

Using a fully-qualified path in the LIB clause of your DECLARE statements is probably not optimal. Better you should store your DLLs somewhere accessible to your program and use unqualified file names in your LIB clauses. Refer to your SDK doc for the "LoadLibrary()" function; that should have the 'search order' used by the operating system when an unqualified file name is used.

This will be especially true if you think you are going to copy files into a user's Windows' folders. If they have the UAC security enabled, that directory requires enhanced permissions to write to it. Once it's installed you'll be OK (assuming Windows/system is on the PATH), it's just getting your file there - and changing or deleting it later - may run into security issues.

MCM