How to initialize and print a std::wstring?
C++C++ CliWstringC++ Problem Overview
I had the code:
std::string st = "SomeText";
...
std::cout << st;
and that worked fine. But now my team wants to move to wstring.
So I tried:
std::wstring st = "SomeText";
...
std::cout << st;
but this gave me a compilation error:
> Error 1 error C2664: > 'std::basic_string<_Elem,_Traits,_Ax>::basic_string(const > std::basic_string<_Elem,_Traits,_Ax> &)' : cannot convert parameter 1 > from 'const char [8]' to 'const std::basic_string<_Elem,_Traits,_Ax> > &' D:...\TestModule1.cpp 28 1 TestModule1
After searching the web I read that I should define it as:
std::wstring st = L"SomeText"; // Notice the "L"
...
std::cout << st;
this compiled but prints "0000000000012342" instead of "SomeText".
What am I doing wrong ?
C++ Solutions
Solution 1 - C++
To display a wstring you also need a wide version of cout - wcout.
std::wstring st = L"SomeText";
...
std::wcout << st;
Solution 2 - C++
Use std::wcout instead of std::cout.
Solution 3 - C++
This answer apply to "C++/CLI" tag, and related Windows C++ console.
If you got multi-bytes characters in std::wstring, two more things need to be done to make it work:
- Include headers
#include <io.h>
#include <fcntl.h> - Set stdout mode
_setmode(_fileno(stdout), _O_U16TEXT)
Result:
Solution 4 - C++
try to use use std::wcout<<st it will fix your problem.
std::wstring st = "SomeText";
...
std::wcout << st;
Solution 5 - C++
Another way to print wide string:
std::wstring str1 = L"SomeText";
std::wstring strr2(L"OtherText!");
printf("Wide String1- %ls \n", str1.c_str());
wprintf(L"Wide String2- %s \n", str2.c_str());
- For printf: %s is narrow char string and %ls is wide char string.
- For wprintf: %hs is narrow char string and %s is wide char string.
Solution 6 - C++
In addition to what is said above, there are octal and hexadecimal character encodings
std::wstring blankHex = L"\x0020";
std::wstring blankOct= L"\040";