DoEnvironmentSubstW function (shellapi.h)

Article
02/09/2023

[This function is retained only for backward compatibility. Use ExpandEnvironmentStrings instead.]

Parses an input string that contains references to one or more environment variables and replaces them with their fully expanded values.

Syntax

DWORD DoEnvironmentSubstW(
  [in, out] LPWSTR pszSrc,
            UINT   cchSrc
);

Parameters

[in, out] pszSrc

Type: LPTSTR

A pointer to a null-terminated string that contains references to one or more environment variables, each in the following form. Case is ignored.

%VariableName%

Any character in the string that is not enclosed in '%' characters is ignored and returned unchanged. Therefore, if your string contains multiple environment variables, you can use any character other than '%' as a separator, including spaces or no separator.

When this function returns successfully, each %VariableName% is replaced with its expanded value. The replacement rules are the same as those used by the command interpreter. If the variable name is not found on the system, the %variableName% is left as it was submitted on entry.

If this function fails due to the expanded string being too large for the buffer, the contents of this buffer are left unchanged.

cchSrc

Type: UINT

The size, in characters, of the buffer pointed to by pszSrc. Note that the buffer must be large enough to hold the returned string.

Return value

Type: DWORD

If the expanded string fits in the buffer, TRUE is returned in the HIWORD and the length, in characters, of the new pszSrc is returned in the LOWORD.

If the expanded string is too large for the buffer, FALSE is returned in the HIWORD and cchSrc in the LOWORD.

Remarks

Parameters must contain valid, non-NULL values. You must validate these values. Failure to do so can provide unexpected results.

Because the string that is returned in pszSrc will typically be longer than the input string, make sure that the buffer is large enough to hold the expanded version of the string. The allotted size of the cchSrc buffer for ANSI strings must be one larger than the buffer for a Unicode string. When dealing with ANSI strings, use the formula buffer size = string length + terminating null character + 1 to determine the minimum correct buffer size.

Because environment variables can be added by the user or applications, the complete list is system-dependent. The following environment variables are standard and are available to both interactive applications and services.

ALLUSERSPROFILE
APPDATA
COMPUTERNAME
LOCALAPPDATA
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS
OS
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER
PROCESSOR_LEVEL
PROCESSOR_REVISION
ProgramData
ProgramFiles
PUBLIC
SystemDrive
SystemRoot
USERPROFILE
windir

The following are only available to interactive applications.

HOMEDRIVE
HOMEPATH
LOGONSERVER
USERDOMAIN
USERNAME

The environment variables that correspond to file system folders can be mapped to an equivalent CSIDL or KNOWNFOLDERID value can be obtained through SHGetFolderLocation or SHGetKnownFolderPath. CSIDLs and KNOWNFOLDERIDs are more reliable than environment variable names and should be used whenever possible.

Examples

The following console application demonstrates the use of DoEnvironmentSubstW.


#include "stdafx.h"
#include "windows.h"
#include "windef.h"
#include "shellapi.h"

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
	WCHAR szSrc[MAX_PATH] = L"%OS%;%HOMEPATH%";

	DWORD result = DoEnvironmentSubstW(szSrc, MAX_PATH);

	WORD success = HIWORD(result);
	WORD string_length = LOWORD(result);

	return 0;
}

Note

The shellapi.h header defines DoEnvironmentSubst as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	shellapi.h
Library	Shell32.lib
DLL	Shell32.dll (version 4.0 or later)

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