C++ Microsoft docs - File handling / Get folder path - c++

Question

I have learned C/C++ Basics and practiced , but I have hard time understanding
Microsoft documentation and find it confusing Documention example
for example : I try to create command line program that should let the user open
folder dialog and choose folder , as result the folders path should be stored in variable
did research and found that there is many ways to achieve this goal but the best way is using IFileDialog::GetFolder method (shobjidl_core.h)
what the difference between file dialogs?
The main question :
How to get folders path as string variable based on user choice from file dialog?
There is c++ resources with practical tutorials ?
I try to understand how I use the following dialog :
Folder dialog
it refernces me to:
BROWSEINFOA structure
Would be very helpful if someone could explain how I can use this folder dialog or something better
any great tutorial of windows/linux file system handling

Answer 1

I used to wcout to print out path
TCHAR path[260];
BROWSEINFO bi = { 0 };
LPITEMIDLIST pidl = SHBrowseForFolder(&bi);
SHGetPathFromIDList(pidl, path);
wcout << path << '\n';
We can use com interface as well :
int WINAPI wWinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE, PWSTR pCmdLine, int nCmdShow);
{
HRESULT hr = CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED | COINIT_DISABLE_OLE1DDE);
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
IFileOpenDialog* pFileOpen;
// Create the FileOpenDialog object.
hr = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_FileOpenDialog, NULL, CLSCTX_ALL,IID_IFileOpenDialog, reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pFileOpen));
// if object created ( that's com object )
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
// Show the Open dialog box.
hr = pFileOpen->Show(NULL);
// Get the file name from the dialog box.
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
IShellItem* pItem;
hr = pFileOpen->GetResult(&pItem);
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
PWSTR pszFilePath;
hr = pItem->GetDisplayName(SIGDN_FILESYSPATH, &pszFilePath);
// Display the file name to the user.
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
MessageBoxW(NULL, pszFilePath, L"File Path", MB_OK);
CoTaskMemFree(pszFilePath);
cout << pszFilePath;
std::string stringtoconvert;
std::wstring temp = std::wstring(stringtoconvert.begin(), stringtoconvert.end());
LPCWSTR lpcwstr = temp.c_str();
}
pItem->Release();
}
}
pFileOpen->Release();
}
CoUninitialize();
}
return 0;
}
Important to mention :
Open and Save As common dialog boxes ( commdlg.h ) have been superseded by the Common Item Dialog
For linux and other platforms there is cross platforms libraries like Qt and more , here is a link for UI solutions
and about Microsoft documentation : I think there should be simpler examples and explanations its complicated & frustrating to learn this way.