Plug-In Development: C++ FM Text to Char?

[cobra]

Hi All,

I haven't used C++ for a while. I'm currently looking at writing my own plug-in for FileMaker 7, but I'm having difficulties converting parameters (passed to a function) into type const char*.

Essentially, I'm trying to do this:

const char* MyChar = dataVect.AtAsText(0);

I've tried using static_cast, creating local fmx::TextAutoPtr variables as intermediaries (variable->Append(...)), etc, but have had no luck after hours of trying.

In addition, it's unfortunate that there is a lack of documentation from Filemaker as to what the methods for their classes actually do. The fact that it's been over 10 years since I last used C++ is probably what makes this frustrating, tho! :-)

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Cobra

[cobra]

Hi Everyone,

Well, I've answered my own question and I thought I'd share (also, I'm hoping that there's a more efficient way to do this). The only thing this won't do properly is handle single and double quote characters (but I expect to work around this pretty quickly now).

EDIT: Oops! I was passing smart (curly) quotes. The code below handles single and double quotes without problems.

Here's the code (please excuse the formatting):

fmx::TextAutoPtr MyParameterText; //A pointer to the parameter's text.

fmx::ushort UnicodeCharStr[100]; //A temporary holder for one unicode character

fmx::ushort UnicodeCharStr2; //Used to get the first position of the unicode character,

//which is the equivalent of the ASCII integer

// version (I think!).

fmx::ulong ParamSize; //The number of characters in the parameter

fmx::ulong x; //A counter

string MyText; //The resultant string of characters

//Set the parameter text to the text variable

MyParameterText->AppendText( dataVect.AtAsText(0), 0, static_cast<fmx::ulong>(-1) );

//Get the number of characters in the text

ParamSize = MyParameterText->GetSize();

//Initialize the counter

x=0;

//Loop through the characters in the text

while (x < ParamSize)

{

//Set the integer array to the unicode expression of one character in the text

MyParameterText->GetUnicode(UnicodeCharStr, x, 1);

//set the integer to the first position in the array

UnicodeCharStr2 = UnicodeCharStr[0];

//Add the integer as a character to the resultant string.

MyText = MyText + (char)UnicodeCharStr2;

//Iterate the counter

x++;

}

The resultant string, MyText, can easily be converted to const char through:

MyText.c_str();

If someone has a quick work-around for getting the single and double quotes out, please do share (EDIT: Problem solved, see above). Also, it's obviously less efficient to do this character by character...is there any way to convert the text to a char string in one go?

Note that this method is pretty much what the Troi Example plug-in code does.

Hope this helps someone!

Cobra