HRESULT

HRESULT is a computer programming data type that represents the completion status of a function. It is used in the source code of applications targeting Microsoft Windows and earlier IBM/Microsoft OS/2 operating systems, but its design does not limit its use to these environments. It could be used in any system supporting 32-bit integers. In other words, most modern computers. The original purpose of HRESULT was to lay out ranges of status codes for both public and Microsoft internal use in order to prevent collisions between status codes in different subsystems of the OS/2 operating system. An HRESULT is designed to simultaneously be both a simple numerical value and a structure of fields indicating severity, facility and status code.