Anybody spend a lot of time typing stuff like this :- DDSURFACEDESC2 ddsd; memset(&ddsd, 0, sizeof(ddsd)); ddsd.dwSize = sizeof(ddsd); Tedious isn''t it? However, I discovered this pleasantly shorter version and I thought I would share it with you :- DDSURFACEDESC2 ddsd = { sizeof(ddsd) }; This does exactly the same thing. It sets the first field (dwSize) to the size of a DDSURFACEDESC2 structure. It initializes the remaining fields to zero. The same goes for other structures that have a size field :- BITMAPINFOHEADER bmih = { sizeof(bmih) }; D3DDEVICEDESC desc = { sizeof(desc) }; ...

Tell me is I''m wrong, but I think dwSize is allways first in the structs.

I thought of another solution to this problem...
pretty simple, but would clean up code and make for less typing:

It is just an idea, and I haven''t compiled it yet, so maybe there is something wrong, but you get the idea...

------------------------------------

template
class DirectXStruct
{
private:

DIRECTX_STRUCT iStruct;

public:

DirectXStruct()
{
memset( &iStruct, 0, sizeof(DIRECTX_STRUCT) );
iStruct.dwSize = sizeof(DIRECTX_STRUCT);
}

// address of operator
DIRECTX_STRUCT* operator&(void)
{
return &iStruct
}

// cast operator to type
operator DIRECTX_STRUCT(void)
{
return iStruct;
}

// cast operator to const type
operator const DIRECTX_STRUCT(void) const
{
return iStruct;
}
};

---------------------

so then, in theory, you can use it like so

DirectXStruct surfaceDesc;

// this may be suspect...
surfaceDesc.dwHeight = 12;

SOME_DDRAW_FUNC( &surfaceDesc );

Anyway, at least you don''t have to worry about initing the struct everywhere.

My last post lost the angle brackets and stuff in between ''em.

I don''t remember how to make them show up in HTML, oh well, that''s what I get for using Frontpage...

anyway that template class is supposed to have the angle brackets as is the variable declaration

you get the idea...