ReadConsoleOutputCharacter gives ERROR_NOT_ENOUGH_MEMORY when requesting more than 0xCFE1 characters, is there a way around that?

Question

the code:

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
  system("mode 128");
  int range = 0xCFE2;
  char* buf = new char[range+1];
  DWORD dwChars;
  if (!ReadConsoleOutputCharacter(
    GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE),
    buf,  // Buffer where store symbols
    range,     // Read len chars
    {0,0},    // Read from row=8, column=6
    &dwChars // How many symbols stored
  )) {
    printf("GetLastError: %lu\n", GetLastError());
  }
  system("pause");
  return 0;
}

Hans Passant Hans Passant · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-30T16:34:54

Console screen buffers cannot be larger than 64K. Each character in the buffer requires 2 bytes, one for the character code and another for the color attributes. It therefore never makes any sense to try to read more than 32K chars with ReadConsoleOutputCharacter().

You don't have a real problem.

ReadConsoleOutputCharacter gives ERROR_NOT_ENOUGH_MEMORY when requesting more than 0xCFE1 characters, is there a way around that?

2 Answers