DnsHostnameToComputerNameA function (winbase.h)

Article
02/09/2023

Converts a DNS-style host name to a NetBIOS-style computer name.

Syntax

BOOL DnsHostnameToComputerNameA(
  [in]      LPCSTR  Hostname,
  [out]     LPSTR   ComputerName,
  [in, out] LPDWORD nSize
);

Parameters

[in] Hostname

The DNS name. If the DNS name is not a valid, translatable name, the function fails. For more information, see Computer Names.

[out] ComputerName

A pointer to a buffer that receives the computer name. The buffer size should be large enough to contain MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH + 1 characters.

[in, out] nSize

On input, specifies the size of the buffer, in TCHARs. On output, receives the number of TCHARs copied to the destination buffer, not including the terminating null character.

If the buffer is too small, the function fails, GetLastError returns ERROR_MORE_DATA, and nSize receives the required buffer size, not including the terminating null character.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is a nonzero value.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError. Possible values include the following.

Return code	Description
ERROR_MORE_DATA	The ComputerName buffer is too small. The nSize parameter contains the number of bytes required to receive the name.

Remarks

This function performs a textual mapping of the name. This convention limits the names of computers to be the common subset of the names. (Specifically, the leftmost label of the DNS name is truncated to 15-bytes of OEM characters.) Therefore, do not use this function to convert a DNS domain name to a NetBIOS domain name. There is no textual mapping for domain names.

To compile an application that uses this function, define _WIN32_WINNT as 0x0500 or later. For more information, see Using the Windows Headers.

Note

The winbase.h header defines DnsHostnameToComputerName as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winbase.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll