# V544. It is suspicious that the value 'X' of HRESULT type is compared with 'Y'.

The analyzer detected a potential error related to handling a variable of the HRESULT type.

HRESULT is a 32-bit value divided into three different fields: severity code, device code and error code. Such special constants as S_OK, E_FAIL, E_ABORT, etc. serve to handle HRESULT-values while the SUCCEEDED and FAILED macros are used to check HRESULT-values.

The V544 warning is generated if the analyzer detects an attempt to compare a variable of the HRESULT type to -1, true or false. Consider this sample:

    HRESULT hr;
    ...
    if (hr == -1)
    {
    }

Comparison of the variable to "-1" is incorrect. Error codes may differ. For instance, these may be 0x80000002L (Ran out of memory), 0x80004005L (unspecified failure), 0x80070005L (General access denied error) and so on. To check the HRESULT -value in this case, we must use the FAILED macro defined in "WinError.h". This is the correct code:

    if (FAILED(hr))
    {
    }

References:

- MSDN. Common HRESULT Values.
- Wikipedia. HRESULT.

This diagnostic is classified as:

CWE-253