Niall Douglas wrote:
That main(argc,argv) receives parameters converted from native UTF-8 internal API to current locale's codepage - generally not being able to represent the all the required charset (since Windows does not support UTF-8 as native locale)
This is incorrect. You have been able to set the Windows console to UTF-8 for many years. Just issue `chcp 65001`, your console is now in UTF-8 and UTF-8 strings will present to argv.
You can set the console to UTF-8 and it will display UTF-8 correctly, but will UTF-8 strings come in (the narrow) argv? I think not. #include <iostream> int main( int argc, char const* argv[] ) { std::cout << argv[1] << std::endl; } C:\Users\Peter Dimov>chcp 65001 Active code page: 65001 C:\Projects\testbed2017>debug\testbed2017.exe проба ????? Whereas: #include <boost/nowide/args.hpp> #include <iostream> int main( int argc, char const* argv[] ) { boost::nowide::args args( argc, argv ); std::cout << argv[1] << std::endl; } Oops, a compile error, Nowide doesn't take char const*. All right, #include <boost/nowide/args.hpp> #include <iostream> int main( int argc, char * argv[] ) { boost::nowide::args args( argc, argv ); std::cout << argv[1] << std::endl; } And now: C:\Projects\testbed2017>debug\testbed2017.exe проба ���������� See? Much better. :-) Although there's still room for improvement: #include <boost/nowide/args.hpp> #include <boost/nowide/iostream.hpp> int main( int argc, char* argv[] ) { boost::nowide::args args( argc, argv ); boost::nowide::cout << argv[1] << std::endl; } C:\Projects\testbed2017>debug\testbed2017.exe проба проба Or alternatively, #include <boost/nowide/args.hpp> #include <cstdio> int main( int argc, char* argv[] ) { boost::nowide::args args( argc, argv ); std::puts( argv[1] ); } with the same result.