Many dialog boxes have edit controls that let the user supply text as input. Most dialog box procedures initialize an edit control when the dialog box first starts. For example, the dialog box procedure may place a proposed filename in the control that the user can then select, modify, or replace. The dialog box procedure can set the text in an edit control by using the SetDlgItemText function, which copies text from a given buffer to the edit control. When the edit control receives the input focus, it automatically selects the complete text for editing.
Because edit controls do not automatically return their text to the dialog box, the dialog box procedure must retrieve the text before it terminates. It can retrieve the text by using the GetDlgItemText function, which copies the edit control text to a buffer. The dialog box procedure typically saves this text to initialize the edit control later or passes it on to the parent window for processing.
Some dialog boxes use edit controls that let the user enter numbers. The dialog box procedure can retrieve a number from an edit control by using the GetDlgItemInt function, which retrieves the text from the edit control and converts the text to a decimal value. The user types the number in decimal digits. It can be either signed or unsigned. The dialog box procedure can display an integer by using the SetDlgItemInt function. SetDlgItemInt converts a signed or unsigned integer to a string of decimal digits.