How to specify color using a VARIANT

Question

I need to set the color of an HTML element, I've managed to get a reference to the style but I now need to pass a VARIANT to the put_color method and I can't find information regarding how you construct a variant.

How would I go about specifying the color #ffaaaa for the put_color call?

CComPtr<IHTMLStyle> spStyle = htmlElement->get_style;
spStyle->put_color(what_goes_here?);

Answer 1

You need to wrap the colour string in a BSTR value, which is one of the types accepted by a VARIANT:

VARIANT color;
color.vt = VT_BSTR;
color.bstrVal = SysAllocString(TEXT("#ffaaaa"));
spStyle->put_color(color);
VariantClear(&color);