Correctly Printing STAFString

2010-06-04T00:00:00Z

At RSA, we use Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF) to automate testing our products. Recently, I ran into a bug that occurred due to STAFResult::STAFString not being null-terminated. Here is an example C++ program that demonstrates the issue:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

#include "STAF.h"
#include "STAFString.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    STAFString name("foo");
    STAFHandlePtr handle;

    int rc = STAFHandle::create(name, handle);
    if (rc != 0) {
        std::cerr << "Could not create STAF handle; error code: "
                  << rc << endl;
        return 1;
    }

    STAFResultPtr result = handle->submit("127.0.0.1", "VAR",
                                          "RESOLVE STRING {STAF/Env/DUMMY}");
    if (result->rc != 0) {
        std::cerr << "Could not run STAF command; error code: "
                  << rc << "\n";
        return 1;
    }

    STAFString output = result->result;
    std::cout << "Output: " << output.buffer() << "\n";
}

Here is an example output of the above program:

C:\>echo %DUMMY%
Why__does__it__break
C:\>STAFExperiments.exe
Output: Why__does__it__break/Env/DUMMY}}

The substring /Env/DUMMY at the end of the output is garbage. The result is not null-terminated in the output buffer. Here is the correct way to print the output:

std::cout << "Output: " << string(output.buffer(), output.length()) << "\n";

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Minimal Installation of WinHTTP API

2010-04-14T00:00:00Z

Here are the steps to perform for a minimal download and installation of WinHTTP API for C++ so that we have the the winhttp.lib and winhttp.h files while writing C++ programs using the WinHTTP API:

Download PSDK-x86.exe from Microsoft ® Windows Server® 2003 R2 Platform SDK Web Install.
Run the installer, select Custom installation type, clear all categories and select Microsoft Windows Core SDK > Build Environment > Build Environment (x86 32-bit).

After the installation is complete, the winhttp.h file can be found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK Server 2003 R2\Include.

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Susam's C++ Pages

Correctly Printing STAFString

Minimal Installation of WinHTTP API