How to get DirectDraw Last error string(DirectX 7)

Question

When I failed executing a DirectDraw method, how to get the failure error string in DirectX 7?

if (FAILED(lpddPrimarySurface->SetPalette(lpddPalette)))
{
    MessageBox(NULL, **"I want to get the failure string here."**, "Error", MB_OK);
    return 0;
}

Here I want to pop up the error messge of the failure information. How to get the LPCSTR string of the error?

Answer 1

There is no error string provided by DirectDraw. You have to look at the returned HRESULT and format your own string as needed. For example:

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/8268-ddraw-error-code/

Answer 2

For NTSTATUS errors the following is possible. Not sure if this will work for Direct Draw and Direct X HRESULT error codes, but it may do as they may be in the system message table. You don't need the ntdll handle either I don't think because the look up is done on the system message table. I have specified it just in case as I have never tested without it.

Excuse the static char array, this just to show example, not a good implementation :)

static const char *NTStatusToString(DWORD NtStatusCode)
{
    LPVOID lpMessageBuffer = 0;
    HMODULE hNTDll = GetModuleHandle("ntdll.dll");
    static char szBuffer[256];

    FormatMessage(
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER |
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM |
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_HMODULE,
        hNTDll,
        NtStatusCode,
        MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT),
        (LPTSTR) &lpMessageBuffer,
        0,
        NULL);

    memset(szBuffer, 0, sizeof(szBuffer));
    _snprintf(szBuffer, sizeof(szBuffer)-1, "%s", lpMessageBuffer);

    LocalFree(lpMessageBuffer);

    return szBuffer;
}

This thread suggests it will work How should I use FormatMessage() properly in C++? however this one suggests it won't Is there a way to get the string representation of HRESULT value using win API? and you will have to do a bit more work than this.

Further reading: here and here and here