What is the simplest way to convert char[] to/from tchar[] in C/C++(ms)?

Question

This seems like a pretty softball question, but I always have a hard time looking up this function because there seem there are so many variations regarding the referencing of char and tchar.

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:22

10

The simplest way is to use the conversion macros:

CW2A
CA2W
etc...

MSDN

answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:22

RichS

3,097
30
26

we should not use these conversions, because if we call these in recursion, it won't release the memory – Vinay Nov 18 '08 at 15:52
@Vinay Create a helper function that calls one of these, then copies the result into the heap or into another buffer. Once the helper function returns, the stack memory is released. – bdonlan Aug 02 '09 at 23:26

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:03

8

TCHAR is a Microsoft-specific typedef for either char or wchar_t (a wide character).

Conversion to char depends on which of these it actually is. If TCHAR is actually a char, then you can do a simple cast, but if it is truly a wchar_t, you'll need a routine to convert between character sets. See the function MultiByteToWideChar()

answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:03

Chris Johnson

10,469
4
31
35

You bring up an excellent point. Although in this particular situation I think the TChar is a wide character I'll only need to do the conversion if it isn't. which I gotta check somehow. – CrashCodes Oct 01 '08 at 20:12

jeffm · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-01T05:01:02.390

7

MultiByteToWideChar but also see "A few of the gotchas of MultiByteToWideChar".

edited Jan 01 '17 at 05:01

answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:05

jeffm

3,120
1
34
57

4

What happens if TCHAR is CHAR? – Martin York Oct 01 '08 at 20:46
1

I read the question as stipulating that a conversion was necessary, but point taken. – jeffm Oct 01 '08 at 20:57

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

3

There are a few answers in this post as well, especially if you're looking for a cross-platform solution:

UTF8 to/from wide char conversion in STL

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

1
1

answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:09

Mark Ransom

299,747
42
398
622

1

How can it be crosss platform there is no TCHAR anyware else. Its windows specific. – Martin York Oct 01 '08 at 20:43

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 01 '08 at 20:25

Although in this particular situation I think the TChar is a wide character I'll only need to do the conversion if it isn't. which I gotta check somehow.

if (sizeof(TCHAR) != sizeof(wchar_t))
{  .... }

The cool thing about that is both sizes of the equals are constants, which means that the compiler will handle (and remove) the if(), and if they are equal, remove everything inside the braces

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 27 '10 at 03:32

2

Here is the CPP code that duplicates _TCHAR * argv[] to char * argn[].

http://www.wincli.com/?p=72

If you adopting old code to Windows, simple use define mentioned in the code as optional.

answered Oct 27 '10 at 03:32

Dmitry Obukhov

31
1
6

broken link (thats why is better to quote the sample : ) – Fernando Gonzalez Sanchez Nov 03 '16 at 20:53

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered May 31 '16 at 08:28

1

You can put condition in your code

ifdef _UNICODE

{ //DO LIKE TCHAR IS WIDE CHAR } ELSE { //DO LIKE TCHAR IS CHAR }

answered May 31 '16 at 08:28

chandan

82
1
5

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 26 '12 at 17:41

I realize this is an old thread, but it didn't get me the "right" answer, so am adding it now.

The way this appears to be done now is to use the TEXT macro. The example for FindFirstFile at msdn points this out. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364418%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

What is the simplest way to convert char[] to/from tchar[] in C/C++(ms)?

8 Answers8

Linked

Related