I need to read data from some files in text format but when I use CreateFile function it always return this value (0xCCCCCCC) instead of a handle to my file . I couldn't find this code in error codes list in MSDN library . where did I do wrong ?
As a matter of fact this is a C++ program without any GUI
I only included the "windows.h" I want to use some API function .

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

You'd need to use GetLastError to determine the actual error, which is an incredible pain in Windows programming.

Diagnosing the problem would require knowing what parameters you passed to CreateFile. From the MSDN, "If the specified file exists . . . CREATE_ALWAYS or OPEN_ALWAYS" you'll get an error. So, I trust you're not supplying one of those two flags. (I don't understand why for OPEN_ALWAYS.)

You should be doing something like (to read in an existing file)...

CreateFile("filename", GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);

Hope that helps.

- taubz

I did as u had said but again I got the same as handle .
I checked it with GetLastError too and it returned the same value again (0xCCCCCCC) . But there is no such an error in the list of MSDN . I'm completely confused . Don't u have any other suggestion !

In your filename, if you're specifying the path to the file, be sure to escape your backslashes, ie C:\\path\\to\\file. That's thrown me off a few times.

- taubz

0xCCCCCCC looks a lot like a memory address. prehaps it is returning a file pointer?

It would be *very* coincidental for a memory address to have such a nice number. (Normally it would be returning a pointer.)

- taubz