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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T21:02:27+00:00

I am trying to get unicode working on windows in a visual studio 2k8

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I am trying to get unicode working on windows in a visual studio 2k8 project, and I am not sure why I can’t get my project to work. My machine has all the Eastern language support installed. I went to properties->project defaults->character set: and it is set to “Use Unicode Character Set”. Here is my test code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>

#define ARAB "گـگـگ گ   لـلـل ل"
#define CHINESE "大夨天太夫"
#define VALUE CHINESE
#define LARAB L"گـگـگ گ   لـلـل ل"
#define LCHINESE L"大夨天太夫"
#define LVALUE LCHINESE

void AttemptStdString(FILE* file)
{
    std::string str(VALUE);
    printf("%s: %s, length(%d)\n",__FUNCTION__,str.c_str(),str.length());
    fprintf( file, "%s = %s\n",__FUNCTION__, str.c_str() );
}    

void AttemptStdWideString(FILE* file)
{
    std::wstring str = LVALUE;
    printf("%s: %s, length(%d)\n",__FUNCTION__,str.c_str(),str.length());
    fprintf( file, "%s = %s\n",__FUNCTION__, str.c_str() );
}    

void AttemptWCharT(FILE* file)
{
    wchar_t arry[] = {0x5927,0x5928,0x5929,0x592A,0x592B,0x0000};
    printf("%s: %s\n",__FUNCTION__,arry);
    wprintf(L"%s: %s\n",__FUNCTION__,arry);
    fprintf( file, "%s = %s\n",__FUNCTION__, arry );
    fwprintf(file,L"AttemptWCharT = %s\n",arry);
}


int main()
{
    FILE* outFile = fopen( "output.txt", "w" );
    AttemptStdString(outFile);
    AttemptStdWideString(outFile);
    AttemptWCharT(outFile);
    fclose(outFile);
    return 0;
}

The results I get at the terminal are:

AttemptStdString: ?????, length(5)
AttemptStdWideString: ‘Y(Y)YY+Y, length(5)
AttemptWCharT: ‘Y(Y)YY+Y
??????T: ?????

The results is get in the file are:

AttemptStdString = ?????
AttemptStdWideString = ‘Y(Y)YY+Y
AttemptWCharT = ‘Y(Y)YY+Y
AttemptWCharT = ?????

What “voodoo” am I missing I am sure that it is something simple that will make this work, it seems like I should be able to print my characters out fine but it is failing. Also I have checked and I can paste the characters into the text editor that I am opening the file with and they display fine. And I have tried both the “Lucida Console” & “Raster Fonts” options availible to me for the visual studio terminal. Please help! What am I doing wrong?

Thank you!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The problem is not completely because of your code, it is how you look at the text. The only way that your text editor can know that the file contains Unicode is by the required BOM. You didn’t write one. Use “ccs=UTF-16LE” in the _wfopen() mode string.

    There’s a similar problem with the console, it cannot display UTF-16 encoded characters. It only handles 8-bit characters, you’d have to use UTF-8 encoding and SetConsoleOutputCP().

    Another problem is the __FUNCTION__ macro. That’s still an 8-bit character string. You have to use the %hs format specifier.

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