# HANDLE Objects

The HANDLE class represents a Windows API handle. In Windows, handles are unique identifiers for program resources. Windows uses handles for most objects managed by the system, from user interface objects like windows and dialogs to kernel resources like files, processes, and threads. The HANDLE type is so ubiquitous in the Windows API that PinballY's Javascript provides this special type to represent it. This is primarily for use with the DLL Import system.

In native code, handle values are essentially pointers, but they don't actually "point" to anything that application code can access. To an application, a handle is just an opaque identifier that it receives from a Windows API function that creates or access a resource, and passes to other API functions that operate on the resource.

HWND is a sub-type used for window handles. HWND has some additional methods specific to UI windows.

## Creation

You don't typically create HANDLE objects directly. You usually get them from external DLL functions that create or access system resources. When a DLL function is declared as returning any sort of Windows handle type, the Javascript HANDLE class is used to represent the value returned to your scripting code.

In some cases, though, you might need to convert a handle value from a string or numeric value. Some types of handles (such as Window handles) can be meaningfully exchanged between processes, so handle values are sometimes converted to a numeric representation and sent to another process in program arguments, via shared memory, via a pipe, etc. If you have a situation where you receive a handle in some kind of external format, you can create a HANDLE object it using new HANDLE(value), where value can be a string, number, or Uint64 value containing a numeric representation of a handle.

## Methods

toNumber(): Returns a Javascript number representing the handle. This is the native pointer value of the handle in numeric format.

On 64-bit Windows systems, handles are 64-bit quantities, so they can in principle exceed the capacity of the Javascript number type. toNumber() throws an error if the handle value can't be stored. As a result, it's usually safer to use toString() or toUint64() if you want to use the value for some data exchange purpose.

toString(): Returns a string representation of the handle. The string is the native pointer value of the handle as a hexadecimal number.

In most cases, there's no need for this, as a handle value is usually only meaningful within the process that created it, and is valid only as long as the process is running; hence there's rarely a need to do anything with a handle value that requires an external representation like this, such as exchanging the handle with another program or storing it in a file. However, some types of handles (e.g., window handles) are system-wide, so it's occasionally useful to create a representation like this that can be exchanged with another process.

toUint64(): Returns a Uint64 object representing the handle. This is the native pointer value of the handle converted to a 64-bit integer, which is sufficient to hold a handle value on any Windows system.