Unsigned Integers and Device Context Functions

Update: the information in this post has been superseded by the information from this post: Device context handles and signed/unsigned integer.

In version 7.25 of Quick PDF Library we made a change to the API which made the use of unsigned integers necessary.

Unfortunately this change will break backwards compatibility for code that makes use of the RenderPageToDC, DARenderPageToDC, and GetCanvasDC functions — the only functions which use unsigned integers.

This means that for the RenderPageToDC and DARenderPageToDC functions the DC parameter now requires an unsigned integer to be passed to it and that the GetCanvasDC function now returns an unsigned integer. You will need to update your code to reflect this change prior to being able to successfully compile using version 7.25.

If you do not use any of these functions then you do not need to make any changes.

Most modern programming languages support unsigned integers, but there are a few older languages which do not. So for those languages we will attempt to come up with suitable workarounds — for example, as mentioned on this blog post a couple of days ago, we have created a TLB file to be used with the ActiveX edition of our library and VB6 which resolves the issue of VB6 not supporting unsigned integers. Leave a comment if your programming language does not support unsigned integers.

We do apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this break in backwards compatibility causes. We do our utmost to avoid situations like this but sometimes breaking backwards compatibility is necessary for the future health of the library.