windows - C++: How to encrypt strings at compile time?

Question

I want to hide some strings in my .exe so people can't simply just open the .exe and look at all the strings there. I don't care about the strength of the encrypting method, so I will probably use XOR etc.

How can I do this at compile time? That way my strings won't be stored in the .exe but the encrypted versions would. Then, I would just use my decrypting function every time to display those strings on screen.

Answer 1

you can encrypt it using macros or write your own preprocessor

#define CRYPT8(str) { CRYPT8_(str "") }
#define CRYPT8_(str) (str)[0] + 1, (str)[1] + 2, (str)[2] + 3, (str)[3] + 4, (str)[4] + 5, (str)[5] + 6, (str)[6] + 7, (str)[7] + 8, ''

// calling it
const char str[] = CRYPT8("ntdll");