I've been working on a Unicode library for submission to Boost, with an eye toward standardizing robust Unicode support for C++. It started as a better string library for namespace "std2", with minimal Unicode support. Though "std2" may never happen, those string types are still in there, and the library has grown to also include all the Unicode features most users will ever need. You can find the Github page here: https://github.com/tzlaine/text You can find the online docs here: https://tzlaine.github.io/text If you care about portable Unicode support, or even addressing the embarrassment of being the only major production language with next to no Unicode support, please have a look and provide feedback. I gave a talk about this at C++Now in May, though it's a bit out of date, as the library was not then finished. It's three hours, so, y'know, maybe skip it. For completeness' sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944GjKxwMBo&index=7&list=PL_AKIMJc4roVSbTTfHReQTl1dc9ms0lWH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2xMAqCZL8&list=PL_AKIMJc4roVSbTTfHReQTl1dc9ms0lWH&index=8 Zach