How to Load UTF-8 Content into Wstrings on Windows?

Loading UTF-8 Content into Wstrings on Windows

Reading Unicode (UTF-8) files into wstrings on Windows platforms requires careful handling of character encoding to ensure proper interpretation of text data.

With the advent of C 11, the std::codecvt_utf8 facet provides a robust solution for converting UTF-8 encoded byte strings to UCS2 or UCS4 character strings. This facet can facilitate both reading and writing of UTF-8 files.

Using the std::codecvt_utf8 Facet

To employ the std::codecvt_utf8 facet effectively, the following steps are involved:

1. Create a locale object that encapsulates culture-specific information and includes the UTF-8 conversion facet.
2. Imbue the stream buffer of an ifstream with the localized information.
3. Use the imbued stream buffer to read the UTF-8 file.

An example implementation of this approach is outlined below:

#include <sstream>
#include <fstream>
#include <codecvt>

std::wstring readFile(const char* filename) {
  std::wifstream wif(filename);
  wif.imbue(std::locale(std::locale::empty(), new std::codecvt_utf8<wchar_t>));
  std::wstringstream wss;
  wss << wif.rdbuf();
  return wss.str();
}

This function can be utilized to conveniently load UTF-8 content into a wstring variable.

Alternative: Setting the Global C Locale

Alternatively, it is possible to set the global C locale to UTF-8 before working with string streams. This eliminates the need to manually imbue stream buffers:

std::locale::global(std::locale(std::locale::empty(), new std::codecvt_utf8<wchar_t>));

With this approach, all subsequent standard locale constructors will return a copy of the modified global C locale, allowing for automatic handling of UTF-8 encoding.

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