[c++] Convert char * to LPWSTR

I am trying to convert a program for multibyte character to Unicode.

I have gone through the program and preceded the string literals with L so they look like L"string".

This has worked but I am now left with a C style string that won't conform. I have tried the L and putting it in TEXT() but the L gets added to the variable name -- not the string -- if I use TEXT().

I have tried making it a TCHAR but then it complains that it cannot convert a TCHAR to a char *.

What options am I left with?

I know C and C++ are different. It is an old in-house C library that has been used in C++ projects for several years now.

The clean way to use mbstowcs is to call it twice to find the length of the result:

  const char * cs = <your input char*>
  size_t wn = mbsrtowcs(NULL, &cs, 0, NULL);

  // error if wn == size_t(-1)

  wchar_t * buf = new wchar_t[wn + 1]();  // value-initialize to 0 (see below)

  wn = mbsrtowcs(buf, &cs, wn + 1, NULL);

  // error if wn == size_t(-1)

  assert(cs == NULL); // successful conversion

  // result now in buf, return e.g. as std::wstring

  delete[] buf;

Don't forget to call setlocale(LC_CTYPE, ""); at the beginning of your program!

The advantage over the Windows MultiByteToWideChar is that this is entirely standard C, although on Windows you might prefer the Windows API function anyway.

I usually wrap this method, along with the opposite one, in two conversion functions string->wstring and wstring->string. If you also add trivial overloads string->string and wstring->wstring, you can easily write code that compiles with the Winapi TCHAR typedef in any setting.

[Edit:] I added zero-initialization to buf, in case you plan to use the C array directly. I would usually return the result as std::wstring(buf, wn), though, but do beware if you plan on using C-style null-terminated arrays.[/]

In a multithreaded environment you should pass a thread-local conversion state to the function as its final (currently invisible) parameter.

Here is a small rant of mine on this topic.

I'm using the following in VC++ and it works like a charm for me.

CA2CT(charText)

This version, using the Windows API function MultiByteToWideChar(), handles the memory allocation for arbitrarily long input strings.

int lenA = lstrlenA(input);
int lenW = ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, input, lenA, NULL, 0);
if (lenW>0)
{
    output = new wchar_t[lenW];
    ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, input, lenA, output, lenW);
} 

You may use CString, CStringA, CStringW to do automatic conversions and convert between these types. Further, you may also use CStrBuf, CStrBufA, CStrBufW to get RAII pattern modifiable strings