The only reference I can find to a function named similarly to what you wrote is this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shcreatedirectoryexw

The name is a little different (a W at the end) could this be the cause of the problem?

Regards,
Francisco

Hi David:

  Is there a reason that your not using the built-in PB CreateDirectory() command instead?

https://docs.appeon.com/pb2022r3/powerscript_reference/createDirectory_func.html

Regards ... Chris 

Hi Chris,

I was trying but could not get it to work, it was always returning an error of -1.

I am trying to create a long path with multiple folders that may not already exist, my understanding is that the built in PowerBuilder function only creates one folder at a time.

ie. I am trying to create a folder like:

c:\a\b\c\d\e\f

And do not want to have to loop through the required path to see if each folder exists.

Hi, David -

This external function declaration should work (although I have not tried it):

FUNCTION Longptr SHCreateDirectoryExW ( &
   Longptr hWnd, &
   String  pszPath, &
   Longptr psa &
   ) LIBRARY "shell32.dll"

Use zero for the first and last argument values.

If successful, the API function issues a return code of zero (the value of the ERROR_SUCCESS #define value in the Windows API). Other possible return code values from this Windows API function:

ERROR_SUCCESS              = 0
ERROR_BAD_PATHNAME         = 161
ERROR_FILENAME_EXCED_RANGE = 206 // Incorrectly spelled, I know...)
ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND       = 3
ERROR_FILE_EXISTS          = 80
ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS       = 183
ERROR_CANCELLED            = 1223

By the way, the "W" suffix on the API function names designate the Unicode ("W" for "Wide", I believe) version of the API function. The "A" suffix designates the ANSI version. Since PB uses Unicode internally, you should always try to use the Unicode version of API functions whenever possible so that PB does not have to convert argument values to ANSI before calling the external function, then back to Unicode after the external function returns. Good luck.

Best regards, John

Thanks very much John,

I had the function declaration incorrect... yours worked and the long directory structure gets created properly..

Much appreciated.

Understood. Thanks Chris.

I did this:

Declare this external function:

FUNCTION Longptr SHCreateDirectoryExW ( Longptr hWnd, String pszPath, Longptr psa ) LIBRARY "shell32.dll"

And make this call:

SHCreateDirectoryExW(0, ls_message_log_dir, 0)

This call returns zero (0) if successfull