Click to open or copy the files for the MsgTable sample.
The MsgTable sample demonstrates how to construct and use a message table resource in your application. The sample message table (Messages.mc) for the message compiler (Mc.exe) shows the format of a typical message table source file. The message table source file contains strings in both English and Japanese. Depending on what your current language settings are, the correct message strings will be displayed on the console. Note that some of the entries for each message are optional but are shown for demonstration purposes. See the documentation in the Tools.hlp file on the message table compiler for more information on which fields are optional.
The msgtest.exe executable shows how to load the message table DLL, how to extract the message text from the resource with the FormatMessage API, and how to decode the various bits in the message identifier. Note that the Messages.h include file to the executable is created during the make process by the message compiler (Mc.exe) as it is creating the binary resource file from the message table source file.
The makefile demonstrates how to set up your dependency rules for your message table source files, output files, and message table DLL.
This sample could be easily modified to link the message table resource directly into your executable rather than into a stand-alone DLL. There is no requirement that the message table resource be located only in a DLL, though this is the common case.
This sample uses the following keywords:
closehandle; formatmessage; getchar; getlasterror; getversion; loadlibraryex; localfree; messagebox; myputmsg; printf; puts