How do you convert CString and std::string std::wstring to each other?

Solution 1:

According to CodeGuru:

CString to std::string:

CString cs("Hello");
std::string s((LPCTSTR)cs);

BUT: std::string cannot always construct from a LPCTSTR. i.e. the code will fail for UNICODE builds.

As std::string can construct only from LPSTR / LPCSTR, a programmer who uses VC++ 7.x or better can utilize conversion classes such as CT2CA as an intermediary.

CString cs ("Hello");
// Convert a TCHAR string to a LPCSTR
CT2CA pszConvertedAnsiString (cs);
// construct a std::string using the LPCSTR input
std::string strStd (pszConvertedAnsiString);

std::string to CString: (From Visual Studio's CString FAQs...)

std::string s("Hello");
CString cs(s.c_str());

CStringT can construct from both character or wide-character strings. i.e. It can convert from char* (i.e. LPSTR) or from wchar_t* (LPWSTR).

In other words, char-specialization (of CStringT) i.e. CStringA, wchar_t-specilization CStringW, and TCHAR-specialization CString can be constructed from either char or wide-character, null terminated (null-termination is very important here) string sources.
Althoug IInspectable amends the "null-termination" part in the comments:

NUL-termination is not required.
CStringT has conversion constructors that take an explicit length argument. This also means that you can construct CStringT objects from std::string objects with embedded NUL characters.

Solution 2:

Solve that by using std::basic_string<TCHAR> instead of std::string and it should work fine regardless of your character setting.

Solution 3:

It is more efficient to convert CString to std::string using the conversion where the length is specified.

CString someStr("Hello how are you");
std::string std(someStr, someStr.GetLength());

In a tight loop, this makes a significant performance improvement.