An application can determine whether a particular string is already in an atom table by using the FindAtom or GlobalFindAtom function. These functions search an atom table for the specified string and, if the string is there, return the corresponding atom.
An application can use the GetAtomName or GlobalGetAtomName function to retrieve an atom-name string from an atom table, provided the application has the atom corresponding to the string sought. Both functions copy the atom-name string of the specified atom to a buffer and return the length of the string that was copied. GetAtomName retrieves an atom-name string from a local atom table, and GlobalGetAtomName retrieves an atom-name string from the global atom table.