Read Unicode UTF-32 file into wstring

Question

For UTF-16, we can read and convert it to wchar at the same time. For example,

std::wifstream* file = new std::wifstream(name, ifstream::binary);
locale lo = locale(file->getloc(), new std::codecvt_utf16<wchar_t, 0x10ffff, std::little_endian>);
file->imbue(lo);

How could I do the same for UTF-32 input?

Answer 1

You may want to use a classic C++ pattern of allocating wifstream on the stack instead of the heap ( new ):

 std::wifstream* file = new std::wifstream(name, ifstream::binary); 

std::wifstream file(name, ifstream::binary);

For the codecvt part, I'd try with std::codecvt_utf16<char32_t> .

PS Note that wchar_t can have different sizes (16 bits, 32 bits) on different platforms. So it may be better for you to use std::u16string for UTF-16 and std::u32string for UTF-32.