Using Structures in Scripts

Win32 API and VCL Structures

User-Defined Structures

Structures Passed as Parameters to DLL Routines

Most of these structures are provided by the Win32API and Utilities scripting objects. If a structure is not supported by these objects, you can always create it in the same way as you create user-defined structures. The most convenient way to determine if TestComplete supports a predefined structure is to use the Code Completion window.

For each supported structure, there is a special wrapper object. These objects are created by functions that have the same names as the structures. Therefore, instead of declaring the type of a structure variable, you call a function using the type name, and get an OLE object wrapping for the wanted structure, which you assign to your variable. For instance, to use the TRect structure (a VCL analogue of the Windows API RECT structure), you call the TRect function:

structRect = TRect()

The wrapper objects contain properties matching structure members, and using the same names. For instance, the following code sets the left and top bounds of the TRect structure:

structRect.Left = 10
structRect.Top = 10

Once you have obtained a VCL or Win32 structure, you can pass it to the appropriate function(s) as a parameter.

Note, that if a function stores data to a structure passed to this function by reference, you should create this structure using the appropriate method before passing it to the function. For instance:

def TestDateTimeToSystemTime():
  DT = Utilities.Now()
  ST = Win32API.TSystemTime()
  Utilities.DateTimeToSystemTime(DT, ST)
  Log.Message(ST.wYear)

To create custom structures, you can use the Object-Driven Testing (ODT) editor and program objects. The editor and the objects let you define custom classes and create objects of these classes. Such objects can be used as wrapper objects for structures. See Object-Driven Testing for more information.

One more way to create custom structures is to use the DLL object. It provides methods that let you create structures with custom fields. You can find examples of creating custom structure via methods of the DLL object in the following topics:

When you call a routine from a dynamic link library using methods and properties of the DLL object, you cannot use wrappers or structures provided by the Win32API and Utilities objects. The DLL object does not support them. This object provides its own mechanism for creating and defining structures. See Calling DLL Functions From Tests - Tutorial for detailed information.