Resource file structure

Comments

You can use either C (/* */) or C++ (//) style comments.

For more information on the lexical conventions of resource files, see Lexical conventions in the Symbian OS Library.

NAME statements

The first non-comment statement in a resource must be the NAME statement. The syntax is as follows:

NAME name

where name is a 4 letter ID that is unique in the application. This ID is used to differentiate and access resource files when an application uses multiple resource files.

For more information on the NAME statement, see NAME statement in the Symbian OS Library.

C++ preprocessor statements

The resource compiler supports a set of pre-processor statements, including:

• #define

• #include

• #ifdef

• #ifndef

• #if

• #else

• #endif

For more information on the supported pre-processor statements, see C++ pre-processor statements in the Symbian OS Library.

Typically, resource files contain #includes statements for the following files:

• appinfo.rh

• avkon.rh

• avkon.rsg

• eikon.rh

These files are delivered with the S60 C++ SDK, and are located under the /Epoc32/include folder. They contain the structure declarations for commonly used data structures in the S60 platform.

For more information, see the commented example file, Resource management example: HelloWorldBasic.

RESOURCE statements syntax

The RESOURCE keyword is used to declare a resource in a resource file. The syntax is as follows:

RESOURCE <STRUCT_NAME> | <resource_name> |
{
<resource-initialiser-list>
}

where:

• <STRUCT_NAME> is the name of a declared data structure in an included resource header file.

  <STRUCT_NAME> must be in upper case.

• resource_name identifies the resource.

  resource_name must be in lower case.

• resource-initialiser-list contains the values the members of the structure should be initialised with when the default values should not be used

RESOURCE statements may include resources defined within other resource statements in the resource file. For example:

RESOURCE EIK_APP_INFO
{
menubar = r_name;
}

uses a resource declared in a later statement to define its menu bar. For more information on EIK_APP_INFO, see EIK_APP_INFO in the Symbian OS Library.

Resource statements may also included nested resource structures. For example:

RESOURCE MENU_PANE r_name2
{
items =
  {
  MENU_TITLE 
	{
	menu_pane = r_name3;
	}
  };
}

For more on the MENU_PANE resource see , Menu bar resource statements.

For more on structures, see the following items in the Symbian OS Library:

• STRUCT statement

• STRUCT member types

• Arrays within structs

For more on resource statements, see:

• Required resource file statements

• Optional resource file statements

• RESOURCE statement in the Symbian OS Library.