You can construct a TPen either directly, by specifying the color, width, and style of the pen, or indirectly, by specifying a TPen & or pointer to a LOGPEN structure.

Directly constructing a pen creates a new object with the specified attributes. Here is the constructor for directly constructing a pen:

TPen(TColor color, int width=1, int style=PS_SOLID);

The style parameter can be one of the following values: PS_SOLID, PS_DASH, PS_DOT, PS_DASHDOT, PS_DASHDOTDOT, PS_NULL, or PS_INSIDEFRAME.

Indirectly creating a pen creates a new object, but copies the attributes of the object passed to it into the new pen object. Here are the constructors for indirectly creating a pen:

TPen(const LOGPEN far* logPen);

TPen(const TPen&);

You can also create a new TPen object from an existing HPEN handle:

TPen(HPEN handle, TAutoDelete autoDelete = NoAutoDelete);

This constructor is used to obtain an ObjectWindows object as an alias to a regular Windows handle received in a message.

Two other constructors are available only for 32-bit applications. You can use these constructors to create cosmetic or geometric pens:

TPen(uint32 penStyle,
   uint32 width,
   const TBrush& brush,
   uint32 styleCount,
   LPDWORD style);
 
TPen(uint32 penStyle,
   uint32 width,
   const LOGBRUSH& logBrush,
   uint32 styleCount,
   LPDWORD style);

where:

penStyle is a combination of type, style, end cap, and join of the pen, where:
- Type is either PS_GEOMETRIC or PS_COSMETIC.
- Style can be any one of the following values:
  - PS_ALTERNATE
  - PS_DASH
  - PS_DASHDOT
  - PS_DASHDOTDOT
  - PS_DOT
  - PS_INSIDEFRAME
  - PS_NULL
  - PS_SOLID
  - PS_USERSTYLE
- End cap is specified only for geometric pens, and can be one of the following values:
  - PS_ENDCAP_FLAT
  - PS_ENDCAP_ROUND
  - PS_ENDCAP_SQUARE
- Join is specified only for geometric pens, and can be one of the following values:
  - PS_JOIN_BEVEL
  - PS_JOIN_MITER
  - PS_JOIN_ROUND
width is the pen width.
brush or logBrush is a reference to an existing TBrush or LOGBRUSH object.
styleCount is the size (in uint32s) of the style array and should be 0 unless the pen style is PS_USERSTYLE.
style is a pointer to an array of uint32s that specifies the pattern of the pen and should be NULL unless the pen style is PS_USERSTYLE.

See Also