Uppercase Identifiers

You'll notice the use of quite a few uppercase identifiers in HELLOWIN.C. These identifiers are defined in WINDOWS.H.

Several of these identifiers contain a two-letter or three-letter prefix followed by an underscore:

CS_HREDRAW DT_SINGLELINE WM_DESTROY
IDI_APPLICATION CS_VREDRAW DT_CENTER
WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW IDC_ARROW DT_VCENTER
WM_PAINT CW_USEDEFAULT  

These are simply numeric constants. The prefix indicates a general category to which the constant belongs, as indicated in this table:

Prefix Category

CS class style
IDI ID for an icon
IDC ID for a cursor
WS window style
CW create window
WM window message
DT draw text

You almost never need to remember numeric constants when programming for Windows. Virtually every numeric constant used in Windows has an identifier defined in WINDOWS.H.