How Well Does C 11's Standard Library Support Unicode?

How Well Does C 11 Support Unicode?

Introduction:
C 11 introduced Unicode support, but its adequacy remains uncertain. This article will analyze the C standard library's Unicode support, focusing on the following aspects: string library functionality, usage guidelines, and potential issues.

String Library Support:
C 11's string library, represented by std::string, primarily provides a sequence of char objects, without offering specific Unicode functionality.

Localization Library:
The localization library, based on the flawed assumption that a single character equals a "char-like object," hinders the proper handling of Unicode characters beyond a limited subset like ASCII.

Code Conversion Facets:
C 11 offers code conversion facets that facilitate conversions between different Unicode encodings and "serialized" strings of bytes. However, this support is cluttered with redundant UCS-2 conversions and lacks essential features like conversion from UTF-16 to UTF-8.

Input/Output Library:
The I/O library integrates with the wstring_convert and wbuffer_convert facilities for reading and writing Unicode text in specific encodings.

Regular Expressions Library:
C 11's regex library lacks level 1 Unicode support, making it unsuited for processing Unicode text without resorting to UTF-32.

Potential Issues:
Unicode support in C 11 has several potential pitfalls:

• Low-level view of text without a higher-level alternative
• Limited support for advanced Unicode operations like normalization
• Inconsistencies in library implementations across different platforms and compilers
• Lack of comprehensive Unicode support without relying on external libraries like ICU or Boost.Locale

Conclusion:
While C 11 provides some basic Unicode support through its standard library, it falls short of offering a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for handling Unicode text. Developers are recommended to explore external libraries or independent implementations to address more complex Unicode requirements.

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