As I'm grasping the ropes of CPP, I try to teach myself new and neat stuff each day. Today I'm recreating the printf() function myself. Only problem is... when I want to write to the video memory, I'm using ehm... you guessed it, printf("%i",va_arg(a_list, int));. I looked up on some stuff about writing directly to the video memory and it all looks fairly simple... only problem is, when declaring a far pointer as the start address Dev-CPP say I'm using improper syntax. :O Get me these errors: 80 C:\Dev-Cpp\Sources and Creations\dotdotdottest.cpp expected primary-expression before "char" 80 C:\Dev-Cpp\Sources and Creations\dotdotdottest.cpp expected `;' before "char" I've also tried capitalizing far to "FAR", and get the same problem. So does Dev just not support far pointers, or is there something wrong on my side? Thanks for all help. P.S. I know I really shouldn't be learning this stuff as there's more effective ways of doing such and such and far pointers are "outdated". I still wanna try learning this, anyways. You know... for the fun of it. ;)

Far pointers are only really used in 16-bit "real mode" code. Dev-Cpp creates 32-bit "(flat) protected mode" code, where far pointers are not used.

Moreover, you cannot access the screen in a modern OS by simply writing to some location in memory - the OS prevents you from doing so. You will need to use one of the OS supplied system services in order to write to the screen.

Oi vey. Alright well thanks, I'll look into that.
bakery2k1.rating++; :P

While we're at it, you also shouldn't use C stuff like char* and printf. C++ has much nicer ways of doing it.

But yeah, direct hardware access is impossible under any modern OS. That includes video memory.

Now, just curious, but where did you dig up information about far pointers? Those haven't been used for ages... [wink]

Haha. Well, first I wanted to know how default I/O wrote to the screen... since printf obviously didn't call on printf to write onto the screen. Found information on video memory and what not, then went digging up tutorials on that. Every last one of them was using far pointers, which of course didn't work with Dev. So I came here. ;)

And yes, I know cout and cin is much easier and in most ways better to work with, but I'm a stickler for file size. Would rather have a 15 KB program as opposed to a 515 KB program (iostream tends to do that). Besides, I kinda like the feel of working with C methods more. Makes me feel smarter!

--Aternus

Edit:The only difference for me between these 2 is file size... which is a couple hundred KB.


[Edited by - Aternus on June 9, 2006 6:50:22 AM]

Quote:Original post by Aternus
And yes, I know cout and cin is much easier and in most ways better to work with, but I'm a stickler for file size. Would rather have a 15 KB program as opposed to a 515 KB program

6.5KB using cout and std::string. Using prinft and char* required 5.5KB

Quote:Besides, I kinda like the feel of working with C methods more. Makes me feel smarter!

There's nothing smart about it. It's just more error-prone. I suppose you also feel smarter if you try to build a car using nothing but a hammer?

Well, doingTends to be 515KB for me. O_o

As for the C thingie, I was just joking. Though C procedures do tend to look more complicated than cout, even though they aren't. That's what I meant by that.


-Etyrn

Edit: Make that 463 KB. Using printf made for 15.2 KB.

Edit - the sequel:@rip-off
It was a 4 AM copy paste where std::string used to be a char*. I'm off to bed. o.o

I've personally played with the compiler options, and have never been able to get Dev-C++ to produce a small executable file when using iostreams. It seems to be inherent either in its compiler or in its iostreams implementation.