On 28.10.2011 16:10, Peter Dimov wrote:
Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
This difference in conversion & wrapping effort was the reason that I used both the standard library and the OS API in my original example.
Using the OS API makes your program non-portable, so it's not clear what the example is supposed to demonstrate.
It demonstrates what I said. That no data conversion is needed for calling API functions. Your argument would to some extent make sense if you are assuming that the two worlds of OS-specific and portable code will always be completely separate, never touching -- but I find that unrealistic.
You may as well stick to wchar_t; Windows 95 is ancient history and the whole wrapping effort is completely unnecessary.
Sorry, that's meaningless to me. It sounds like free association.
The portable version of your example would be something along the lines of:
#include "message_box.hpp" #include <stdio.h>
int main() { char buffer[ 80 ]; sprintf( buffer, "The answer is %d!", 6*7 );
message_box( buffer, "Title", mb_icon_information ); }
where message_box has implementations for the various OSes the program supports. On Windows, it will utf8_decode its arguments and call MessageBoxW.
There is no need to add inefficient translation to the mix.
A localizable version would not embed readable texts:
#include "message_box.hpp" #include "get_text.hpp" #include <stdio.h>
int main() { char buffer[ 80 ]; // ignore buffer overflow for now sprintf( buffer, get_text( "the_answer_is" ).c_str(), 6*7 );
message_box( buffer, get_text( "title" ), mb_icon_information ); }
Now get_text may return something in Chinese (UTF-8 encoded) and it will all work.
This may conceivably make sense at some enterprise level.
It's also possible to use wchar_t for human-readable text throughout the code base - this provides a layer of type safety. You'll have to replace sprintf with swprintf then. Paths, however, are better kept as char[].
Sorry, again I fail to discern the underlying thoughts. It sounds like free association. Cheers & sorry, no comprende, - Alf