Win32 Message Loops: Quitting after window closes

Question

If I have the following code below, how do I detect when the window has been closed, so I can quit? r never seems to get the value -1 0, and I need to process messages for the entire thread, not just the current window.

HWND hWnd = CreateWindowExW(0, L"Edit", L"My Window", WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
    CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, 300, 200, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);
ShowWindow(hWnd, SW_SHOWDEFAULT);
MSG msg;
BOOL r;
while ((r = GetMessageW(&msg, NULL, 0, 0)) != 0)
{
    if (r == -1) { break; }
    TranslateMessage(&msg);
    DispatchMessageW(&msg);
}

Answer 1

Waiting for r = -1 is not the way you detect that your window has closed. A return value of -1 is not a normal condition: it indicates that an error has occurred in the message loop.

From the documentation:

Return Value

Type: BOOL

If the function retrieves a message other than WM_QUIT, the return value is nonzero.

If the function retrieves the WM_QUIT message, the return value is zero.

If there is an error, the return value is -1. For example, the function fails if hWnd is an invalid window handle or lpMsg is an invalid pointer. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

When GetMessage retrieves a WM_QUIT message from the queue, it will return a value of 0, and you should end the loop.

If you just want to know when the window has closed, you probably want to handle either the WM_CLOSE or WM_DESTROY messages. For a discussion of these messages, see the answers to this question: What is the difference between WM_QUIT, WM_CLOSE, and WM_DESTROY in a windows program?

Answer 2

I found a solution for this: WM_NULL.
The message loop can handle the matter on its own independently of WndProc:

// written in C# 
MSG msg = new MSG();
while (GetMessage(out msg, window, 0, 0))
{
    if ((msg.message == WM_NULL) && !IsWindow(window))
        break;
    TranslateMessage(ref msg);
    DispatchMessage(ref msg);
}
Console.WriteLine("yeah, out of loop ^^");

From my observation: When window is destroyed GetMessage retrieves WM_NULL messages without pause (1st hint) and IsWindow can check the window (affirmation).