C++: Having unicode console title..?

Question

When I try to set my console's title to a string that has unicode characters in it, using SetConsoleTitle(), the title displays just some garbage characters instead.
I have also tried the SetConsoleTitleW() function, but that gives me the following error:

error: cannot convert 'const char*' to 'const WCHAR*' for argument '1' to 'BOOL SetConsoleTitleW(const WCHAR*)'

Any advice?

Answer 1

You have to use wide string literal, that is:

SetConsoleTitleW(L"DиD");

The L, before a quote denotes, that this is a wchar_t* string.

Also, for completness I have to say, that in C++11, there are new string literal prefixes defined:

const char a[] = u8"for a UTF-8 string.";
const char_16_t b[] = u"for a UTF-16 string.";
const char_32_t c[] = U"for a UTF-32 string.";

as usual wikipedia has more detailed note about that.

Answer 2

It looks as if you are attempting to send UTF-8-encoded data to a function that expects UTF-16-encoded data.

You need to either convert the string literal to UTF-16 (i.e. WCHAR*) before passing it to the function, or create the literal as a WCHAR* literal (which I believe is done using the syntax L"DиD").