Convert char * to LPWSTR

The std::mbstowcs function is what you are looking for:

 char text[] = "something";
 wchar_t wtext[20];
 mbstowcs(wtext, text, strlen(text)+1);//Plus null
 LPWSTR ptr = wtext;

for strings,

 string text = "something";
 wchar_t wtext[20];
 mbstowcs(wtext, text.c_str(), text.length());//includes null
 LPWSTR ptr = wtext;

--> ED: The "L" prefix only works on string literals, not variables. <--

The clean way to use mbstowcs is to call it twice to find the length of the result:

  const char * cs = <your input char*>
  size_t wn = mbsrtowcs(NULL, &cs, 0, NULL);

  // error if wn == size_t(-1)

  wchar_t * buf = new wchar_t[wn + 1]();  // value-initialize to 0 (see below)

  wn = mbsrtowcs(buf, &cs, wn + 1, NULL);

  // error if wn == size_t(-1)

  assert(cs == NULL); // successful conversion

  // result now in buf, return e.g. as std::wstring

  delete[] buf;

Don't forget to call setlocale(LC_CTYPE, ""); at the beginning of your program!

The advantage over the Windows MultiByteToWideChar is that this is entirely standard C, although on Windows you might prefer the Windows API function anyway.

I usually wrap this method, along with the opposite one, in two conversion functions string->wstring and wstring->string. If you also add trivial overloads string->string and wstring->wstring, you can easily write code that compiles with the Winapi TCHAR typedef in any setting.

[Edit:] I added zero-initialization to buf, in case you plan to use the C array directly. I would usually return the result as std::wstring(buf, wn), though, but do beware if you plan on using C-style null-terminated arrays.[/]

In a multithreaded environment you should pass a thread-local conversion state to the function as its final (currently invisible) parameter.

Here is a small rant of mine on this topic.

This version, using the Windows API function MultiByteToWideChar(), handles the memory allocation for arbitrarily long input strings.

int lenA = lstrlenA(input);
int lenW = ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, input, lenA, NULL, 0);
if (lenW>0)
{
    output = new wchar_t[lenW];
    ::MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, input, lenA, output, lenW);
}

I'm using the following in VC++ and it works like a charm for me.

CA2CT(charText)

Convert char * to LPWSTR

Related

Recent Posts