Application location and sndPlaySound

[pasquale]

Hello, eveybody.

In my Windows app, I'm trying to figure out how to play a WAV file safely in the presence of special characters.

I have tried the following code (after putting MMSystem in Uses), which works fine, provided that the application location does not include any stressed letters (e.g. àèéìòù) or any other special characters:

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. sndPlaySound(pchar(UTF8ToSys(Application.Location + 'welcome.wav')), snd_Async or snd_NoDefault);

The presence of spaces doesn't seem to interfere with the exact app path, whereas special characters are not recognized correctly. The problem is, my language (Italian) is full of stressed letters and I just can't ignore the problem. In fact, the chances of the application location containing special characters are not slim at all.

Do you know any solution to my problem?

Thanks in advance.

[pasquale]

If sndPlaySound does not allow you to override the issue with special characters, any other solution would be welcome.

[jamie]

Try that with WIDESTRING or unicodeString.

[pasquale]

Try that with WIDESTRING or unicodeString.

I don't have much familiarity with Lazarus. Can you tell me where I can find some examples?

Thanks.

[wp]

This is working (tested):

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
2. var
3.   fn: WideString;
4. begin
5.   fn := Application.Location + 'äöü.wav';
6.   sndPlaySoundW(PWideChar(fn), snd_Async or snd_NoDefault);
7. end;

Note the "W" appended to "sndPlaySound" because it tells Windows that the filename is a pointer to a wide string rather than to an ansistring.

[JuhaManninen]

Yes, wp nailed it.
Here is more information about Unicode in Lazarus programs / applications :
 https://wiki.freepascal.org/Unicode_Support_in_Lazarus

[pasquale]

This is working (tested):

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
2. var
3.   fn: WideString;
4. begin
5.   fn := Application.Location + 'äöü.wav';
6.   sndPlaySoundW(PWideChar(fn), snd_Async or snd_NoDefault);
7. end;

Note the "W" appended to "sndPlaySound" because it tells Windows that the filename is a pointer to a wide string rather than to an ansistring.

Thanks a lot. Your code works great. Problem solved.

[Bart]

B.t.w.: UTF8ToSys is a no-op in a default Lazarus setup.
If you want to translate Utf8 to Windows codepage (ANSI) use Utf8ToWinCP instead.

That being said, the solution with the W version of teh windows API is better (it will allow for any unicode character, whereas Utf8ToWinCP only works if the expected result is inside your current codepage, so on my locale, it will fail with e.g. cyrillic cgaracters).

Bart

[pasquale]

B.t.w.: UTF8ToSys is a no-op in a default Lazarus setup.
If you want to translate Utf8 to Windows codepage (ANSI) use Utf8ToWinCP instead.

That being said, the solution with the W version of teh windows API is better (it will allow for any unicode character, whereas Utf8ToWinCP only works if the expected result is inside your current codepage, so on my locale, it will fail with e.g. cyrillic cgaracters).

Bart

Thanks.