Using Tabs with Initialization File APIs

MORE INFORMATION

If a call made to either WritePrivateProfileString or WriteProfileString that contains the tab character as part of the lpszString parameter, the desired effect will not occur. Both of these functions will return TRUE (that is, successful completion); however, any data that was to follow the tab character will be missing. The newly created or modified key of the .INI file will indicate the loss of data.

When using the GetPrivateProfileString API to retrieve a string from a specified section in an .INI file, if the string is in the form:

   lpszKey=ValuePart1 <tab> ValuePart2
				

then GetPrivateProfileString returns ValuePart1, but does not return ValuePart2 because of the tab.

Code to Demonstrate Behavior

The following code demonstrates this loss of data after a call to WritePrivateProfileString:

void main()
{
     char szBuf[200];

     if ( !WritePrivateProfileString("TEST",
           "TESTKEY",
           "Test String \t more text",
           "TEST.INI")  )
     {
           FormatMessage(
                FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,
                NULL,
                GetLastError(),
                MAKELANGID(LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US),
                szBuf,
                199,
                NULL );

           MessageBox(NULL, szBuf,
                 "Error calling WritePrivateProfileString",
                 MB_OK);
     }
}