Visual C++ and MFC Programming 2nd Edition

Visual C++ and MFC Fundamentals Chapter 12: Dialog-Based Windows

10.1.2..The Framework....................................................................................

Instead of creating an application using "raw" Win32 classes and functions, the

document/view architecture simplifies this process by providing a mechanism called the

framework. The framework is a set of classes, functions, and techniques used to create an

application as complete as possible with as few lines of code as possible. To provide all

this functionality, the framework works behind the scenes with the CWinApp class to

gather the necessary MFC classes and functions, to recognize and reconcile the Win32

classes that the application needs. This reconciliation is also made possible by a set of

global functions. These functions have names that start with Afx... Some of these

functions are:

?? AfxFormatString1

?? AfxFormatString2

?? AfxMessageBox

?? AfxFreeLibrary

?? AfxGetApp

?? AfxGetAppName

?? AfxGetInstanceHandle

?? AfxGetMainWnd

?? AfxGetResourceHandle

?? AfxInitRichEdit

?? AfxLoadLibrary

?? AfxMessageBox

?? AfxRegisterWndClass

?? AfxSocketInit

?? AfxSetResourceHandle

?? AfxRegisterClass

?? AfxBeginThread

?? AfxEndThread

?? AfxGetThread

?? AfxWinInit

So far, we have seen that, after an application is created by deriving a class from

CWinApp, you must declare a global variable of your application class to make it

available to the rest of your application. An example of declaring that variable is:

CExerciseApp theApp;

To get a pointer to this variable from anywhere in your application, call the AfxGetApp()

function. Its syntax is:

CWinApp* AfxGetApp();

To implement the role of the Win32's WinMain() function, the framework uses its own

implementation of this function and the MFC provides it as AfxWinInit(). It is declared

as follows:

BOOL AFXAPI AfxWinInit(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,

LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow);

As you can see, the Win32's WinMain() and the MFC's AfxWinInit() functions use the

same arguments.