How to initialize and print a std::wstring?

Question

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 ?

Consider using ICU unicode library - [link](http://icu-project.org/apiref/icu4c/index.html). It supports unicode and has many usefull features. especially if you want to manipulate those strings. — WeaselFox, Jan 09 '12 at 12:06
@Weasel: Why in the world would you need a separate library to work with Unicode strings? — Cody Gray, Jan 09 '12 at 12:08
from my experience its much better to use a separate library to manipulate wchar strings (search, replace etc) or other multi-byte strings. — WeaselFox, Jan 09 '12 at 12:31

score 136 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:00

136

To display a wstring you also need a wide version of cout - wcout.

std::wstring st = L"SomeText";
...
std::wcout << st;

answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:00

Bo Persson

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score 20 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:00

20

Use std::wcout instead of std::cout.

answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:00

hmjd

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Val · Answer 3 · 2017-02-06T10:43:35.897

9

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:

edited Feb 06 '17 at 10:43

answered Jan 11 '17 at 06:27

Val

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Thank you very much! It would have taken me a long time to figure this out... I was having trouble printing a wstring that I instantiated with a greater length than the data I was supplying due to `sizeof(wchar_t) == sizeof(char) * 2`, and then printing anything after that wasn't succeeding. Your answer fixed the multi-byte printing problem so I could determine what was going on. – Andrew Apr 14 '18 at 22:27

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:03

6

try to use use std::wcout<<st it will fix your problem.

std::wstring st = "SomeText";
...
std::wcout << st;

answered Jan 09 '12 at 12:03

Hemant Metalia

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 30 '22 at 00:16

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.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 19 '22 at 18:06

0

In addition to what is said above, there are octal and hexadecimal character encodings

std::wstring blankHex = L"\x0020";
std::wstring blankOct= L"\040";

String and character literals (C++)

answered Apr 19 '22 at 18:06

Sam Ginrich

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How to initialize and print a std::wstring?

6 Answers6

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