I feel uncomfortable when I need to use names in the code that I don't fully understand. Currently I want to implement clipboard functionality with OLE and I've encountered a bit confusing FORMATETC and TYMED. Sadly, I can't find explanation on Microsoft Docs. What is "ETC"? Is that "et cetera"? If so, it seems to be a bad name. And TYMED? "MED" most likely means "medium", but what is "TY"?
It would appear, indeed, that the "etc" part of FORMATETC stands for et cetera (Latin for "and so on," or "and the rest"), as the FORMATETC structure contains a member specifying the format type along with members specifying 'other' information:
typedef struct tagFORMATETC {
CLIPFORMAT cfFormat;
DVTARGETDEVICE *ptd;
DWORD dwAspect;
LONG lindex;
DWORD tymed;
} FORMATETC, *LPFORMATETC;
The TYMED enumeration values do (also as you have postulated) represent different TYpes of storage MEDia.