PathIsUNC function

Determines if a path string is a valid Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path, as opposed to a path based on a drive letter.

Syntax

C++


BOOL PathIsUNC(
  _In_ LPCTSTR pszPath
);

Parameters

pszPath [in]

Type: LPCTSTR

A pointer to a null-terminated string of maximum length MAX_PATH that contains the path to validate.

Return value

Type: BOOL

Returns TRUE if the string is a valid UNC path; otherwise, FALSE.

Examples

This example feeds sample strings to the PathIsUNC function to demonstrate its return value.

C++


#include "stdafx.h"
#include "shlwapi.h"  // PathIsUNC

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    PCWSTR TestStr[11];
    
    // Test strings
    TestStr[0] = L"\\\\path1\\path2";
    TestStr[1] = L"\\\\path1";
    TestStr[2] = L"acme\\path4\\path5";
    TestStr[3] = L"\\\\";
    TestStr[4] = L"\\\\?\\UNC\\path1\\path2";
    TestStr[5] = L"\\\\?\\UNC\\path1";
    TestStr[6] = L"\\\\?\\UNC\\";
    TestStr[7] = L"\\path1";
    TestStr[8] = L"path1";
    TestStr[9] = L"c:\\path1";
    TestStr[10] = L"\\\\?\\c:\\path1";
    
    int retval = -1;
    
    for (int i = 0; i < 11; i++)
    {
        retval = PathIsUNC(TestStr[i]);
    }
    
    return 0;
}

This table summarizes the results of the code above.

Path	PathIsUNC
"\\path1\path2"	TRUE
"\\path1"	TRUE
"acme\\path4\\path5"	FALSE
"\\"	TRUE
"\\?\UNC\path1\path2"	TRUE
"\\?\UNC\path1"	TRUE
"\\?\UNC\"	TRUE
"\path1"	FALSE
"path1"	FALSE
"c:\path1"	FALSE
"\\?\c:\path1"	FALSE

Requirements

Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Header	Shlwapi.h
Library	Shlwapi.lib
DLL	Shlwapi.dll (version 4.71 or later)
Unicode and ANSI names	PathIsUNCW (Unicode) and PathIsUNCA (ANSI)