How to Display UTF-8 Strings Correctly on Windows Console: A Comprehensive Guide?

UTF-8 Output in Windows: A Comprehensive Guide

Windows presents a unique challenge when writing cross-platform applications in C that rely on UTF-8 encoded strings. Unlike Unix systems, which automatically interpret 8-bit strings as UTF-8, Windows requires a specific configuration to do the same.

Consider the following code:

<code class="cpp">#include <string>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
    std::string test = u8"Greek: αβγδ; German: Übergrößenträger";
    std::cout << test;
    return 0;
}</code>

On Unix systems, this code will render the desired characters correctly. However, on Windows, it will display garbled text due to std::cout's default expectation of 8-bit strings in Latin-1 or similar non-Unicode format.

To resolve this issue, Windows requires two configuration steps:

1. Setting Console Code Page to UTF-8

This informs the console to interpret the byte stream it receives as UTF-8:

<code class="cpp">SetConsoleOutputCP(CP_UTF8);</code>

2. Enabling Buffering in std::cout

The Visual Studio STL implementation of std::basic_filebuf can pass UTF-8 sequences as individual bytes, leading to incorrect console interpretation. By enabling buffering, we ensure that strings are passed in their entirety:

<code class="cpp">setvbuf(stdout, nullptr, _IOFBF, 1000);</code>

With these configurations, UTF-8 strings will be accurately displayed on the Windows console. However, it's important to note that Windows consoles still have legacy issues:

• Raster Fonts: These fonts ignore the console's code page, requiring the use of TrueType fonts for non-ASCII Unicode characters.
• Windows 7 Default Font: Until Windows 10, the default font was a raster font, requiring manual configuration to a TrueType font.

By incorporating both code and context, this revised answer provides a comprehensive step-by-step solution for printing UTF-8 strings on Windows, addressing both historical and modern considerations.

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