{"id":8953,"date":"2011-12-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2011\/12\/07\/getparent-just-as-confusing-as-enumclaw-but-its-an-actual-function\/"},"modified":"2011-12-07T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T07:00:00","slug":"getparent-just-as-confusing-as-enumclaw-but-its-an-actual-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20111207-00\/?p=8953","title":{"rendered":"GetParent, just as confusing as EnumClaw, but it's an actual function!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The function Enum­Claw<\/code><\/a>, documented as returning “the child or the parent of the window”, was a joke, but there’s a function whose behavior is just as confusing as the joke function Enum­Claw<\/code>: Get­Parent<\/code>.\n The Get­Parent<\/code> function returns the parent window, or owner window, or possibly neither. All that’s left is for it to be a floor wax and it’ll have everything covered.\n The idea behind Get­Parent<\/code> is that it returns the parent window. Only child windows have parents, so what happens if you pass something that isn’t a child window? Well, we shouldn’t let a parameter go to waste, right? So let’s have it return the owner window<\/i> if you pass in a top-level window. But wait, we’re not going to return the owner window for all top-level windows, just for top-level windows which have the WS_POPUP<\/code> style.\n This last bit regarding the WS_POPUP<\/code> style is a leftover from Windows 1.0, where there was a distinction made between “tiled windows” and “popup windows.” Popup windows could overlap, whereas tiled windows could not, and the function was only interested in windows that can overlap. Of course, now that all windows can overlap, the rejection of tiled windows is just a compatibility remnant.\n Anyway, the algorithm for Get­Parent<\/code> goes like this:<\/p>\n