Easy and convenient way to convert Wide Characters to Multibyte with modern C++

One  of the most common tasks we developers have to do comes in the form of data conversion. A good example would be converting  void* (equivalent of Object in .NET) to a specific pointer of a different class through reinterpret_cast, this is however one example. Today’s post is about converting strings as Wide Characters to Multibyte using modern C++.

By modern C++, I mean using smart pointers instead of naked or raw pointers, string class and since it’s a functionality that will be used in different sections of code, it could be in the form of a function template or lambda, in this case, I’ll use a lambda as shown below

 1     auto ConvertWstringToChar = [=](std::wstring& original) -> std::string {
 2         std::string retval;
 3         size_t cntConverted;
 4 
 5         if (!original.empty()) {
 6             wcstombs_s(&cntConverted, nullptr, NULL, original.c_str(),
 7                        original.size());
 8             
 9             auto buffer = std::make_unique<char[]>(cntConverted);
10             
11             memset(buffer.get(), ' ', original.size());
12             
13             wcstombs_s(&cntConverted, buffer.get(), strlen(buffer.get()) + 1,
14                        original.c_str(), original.size());
15                        
16             retval.append(buffer.get());
17         }
18 
19         return retval;
20     };
21 
22     std::wstring test(L"This is my very funky string!!!!");
23     auto converted = ConvertWstringToChar(test);
24 }

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Filed under: Microsoft - @ February 12, 2015 12:00 pm

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