Why are wchar_t and wstrings Problematic for Internationalization, and What are Better Alternatives?

Unicode Woes: The Quandary of wchar_t and wstrings

Wide characters (wchar_t) and wide string literals (wstrings) have sparked controversy in the C community, prompting questions about their shortcomings and alternatives for internationalization support.

What's Wrong with wchar_t?

wchar_t is designed to represent all characters in all supported locales with a single code point. However, its implementation does not guarantee a consistent encoding across locales. This inconsistency hinders the use of wchar_t as a reliable character representation for text processing.

Alternatives to Wide Characters

1. UTF-8 C Strings:

UTF-8 encoded C strings offer a portable and platform-independent representation. They are commonly used and provide standard datatype support for string literals and language features. However, UTF-8 does not provide the simplicity of text algorithms available with ASCII encodings.

2. Cross-Platform Representations:

Some software employs cross-platform representations like UTF-16 stored in unsigned short arrays, accompanied by custom library support to handle data conversion and language limitations.

3. C 11 Wide Characters (char16_t, char32_t):

C 11 introduces new wide character types (char16_t, char32_t) with improved language and library features. While they are not explicitly defined as UTF-16 and UTF-32, most implementations are expected to adopt these encodings.

Alternatives to Avoid

TCHAR:

TCHAR is a Windows-specific legacy construct for migrating programs from char to wchar_t. It is unspecific in encoding and data type, making it non-portable and unreliable.

Conclusion

wchar_t's flawed design and limitations render it unsuitable for the purpose it was originally intended for - simplifying text processing. For portable code, UTF-8 C strings and C 11 wide characters provide more viable alternatives for internationalization support. It's crucial to avoid using TCHAR, as it offers no advantages and hinders portability.

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