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Visual Basic 6 definition

Declare Function CompareString Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "CompareStringA" (ByVal Locale As Long, ByVal dwCmpFlags As Long, ByVal lpString1 As String, ByVal cchCount1 As Long, ByVal lpString2 As String, ByVal cchCount2 As Long) As Long

Visual Basic .NET definition

Declare Function CompareString Lib "kernel32" Alias "CompareStringA" (ByVal Locale As Integer, ByVal dwCmpFlags As Integer, ByVal lpString1 As String, ByVal cchCount1 As Integer, ByVal lpString2 As String, ByVal cchCount2 As Integer) As Integer

C# definition

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError=true)] static extern int CompareStringA ( int Locale, int dwCmpFlags, string lpString1, int cchCount1, string lpString2, int cchCount2)

Description

CompareString compares two strings and determines which one would come first in an alphabetic sort. Although this function can use a number of different comparisons, by default it conducts a case-sensitive word sort. In a word sort, all symbols except hyphens and apostrophes come before the letter "a" (hyphens and apostrophes are treated differently). The function compares strings by first comparing their first characters, then their second characters, etc. until an unequal pair of characters is found. CompareString Compares two character strings, using the specified locale. System.String.Compare

Return Value

If an error occured, the function returns 0 (use GetLastError to get the error code). If successful, the function returns one of the following flags specifying the result of the comparison: CSTR_LESS_THAN The first string is less than the second string (i.e., the first string comes before the second string in alphabetical order). CSTR_EQUAL The first string is equal to (but not necessarily identical to) the second string. CSTR_GREATER_THAN The first string is greater than the second string.

Parameters

Locale The locale identifier of the locale to use to compare the strings. This could also be one of the following flags: LOCALE_SYSTEM_DEFAULT The system's default locale. LOCALE_USER_DEFAULT The user's default locale. dwCmpFlags A combination of the following flags specifying options for the comparison. To use the default comparison, set this parameter to 0. NORM_IGNORECASE Conduct a case-insensitive search. NORM_IGNOREKANATYPE For Japanese characters, do not differentiate between Hiragana and Katakana characters. NORM_IGNORENONSPACE Ignore nonspacing characters. NORM_IGNORESYMBOLS Ignore symbols. NORM_IGNOREWIDTH Do not differentiate between equivalent single-byte and double-byte characters. SORT_STRINGSORT Use a string sort instead of a word sort. In a string sort, all symbols, including hyphens and apostrophes, come before the letter "a". lpString1 The first string to compare. cchCount1 The length of lpString1. If this is -1, lpString1 must end in a terminating null character. lpString2 The second string to compare. cchCount2 The length of lpString2. If this is -1, lpString2 must end in a terminating null character.

Constants

Const CSTR_LESS_THAN = 1 Const CSTR_EQUAL = 2 Const CSTR_GREATER_THAN = 3 Const LOCALE_SYSTEM_DEFAULT = &H400 Const LOCALE_USER_DEFAULT = &H800 Const NORM_IGNORECASE = &H1 Const NORM_IGNOREKANATYPE = &H10000 Const NORM_IGNORENONSPACE = &H2 Const NORM_IGNORESYMBOLS = &H4 Const NORM_IGNOREWIDTH = &H20000 Const SORT_STRINGSORT = &H1000

Further Information:

For further information on Windows API functions such as these, and how to use these API's in your C# and VB.NET applications, please refer to the book 'Network programming in .NET' (Buy at Amazon UK) (Buy at Amazon US)

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