Question

Using WideCharToMultiByte

Asked by: StraySod

Hi,

I need to convert a widechar string stored in CString object to convert to UTF8 encoded string. In the snippet is source code which I use now, but it doesn't work as expected. It works fine with ASCII characters, but when using national characters like
,a,é... it converts wrong. It converts only the first half of a string ie. when converting 'éáíú' the result is only 'éá'. In combination with standard ASCII it looks like this:

abcdefg

~~ -> abcdefg

 (~~ gets cut)

or

abc

aa -> abc

 (aa gets cut)

 If you could help me I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much!

CString cs = HTMLSource;
int sourceLength = cs.GetLength();
char* translated = new char[sourceLength + 1];
 
int ret = WideCharToMultiByte(CP_UTF8, 
                                        0, 
				        cs, 
				        sourceLength, 
					translated,
					sourceLength,
					NULL, 
                                        NULL);
		
translated[sourceLength] = 0;

                                  
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Asked On
2009-09-11 at 06:15:03ID24724412
Tags

WideCharToMultiByte

,

UTF8

,

ANSI

Topics

Microsoft Visual C++

,

Windows MFC Programming

,

C++ Programming Language

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Answers

 

by: StraySodPosted on 2009-09-11 at 06:28:18ID: 25309179

almost all special characters in my question were censored, now it looks silly in parts where the examples are mentioned. If you couldn't understand my question, please let me know, I will try to provide example somewhere else and post a link here.

 

by: daryalPosted on 2009-09-11 at 06:28:45ID: 25309184

 

by: AndyAinscowPosted on 2009-09-11 at 06:41:29ID: 25309374

How do you test the converted string?


Remember that a single zero is treated as a string terminator for a ASCII build, so your conversion may well be correct.  

 

by: StraySodPosted on 2009-09-11 at 07:37:56ID: 25309947

I'm developing an online editing of HTML source using mozilla's gecko engine. I type something into a text editor (CRichEditView) and it appears in the embedded browser. Everything works fine except of this conversion. I can see there that these special national characters are not converted well. It displays one char instead of two, two instead of four etc. I've seen in the debuger that every special char consist of two weird chars after conversion. I really don't understand this well and probably I'm not able to explain it so it would be clear.
First I get the HTML source and convert it from UTF8 to windows ANSI using MultiByteToWideChar (see the snippet). Than I edit the source in text editor and want to pass it back to the browser. Now I need to convert it back to UTF8 (the example I provided in question post), but the special characters don't work. 

//this code works fine, it's a solution from other question on EE
 
int sourceLength = sHTMLSource.length();
#ifdef UNICODE 
int ret = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, 
				sHTMLSource.c_str(), 
				sourceLength, 
				HTMLSource.GetBuffer(sourceLength + 1024),
				sourceLength + 1024);
		
HTMLSource.ReleaseBuffer(ret);
#else

                                              
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by: jkrPosted on 2009-09-11 at 08:09:26ID: 25310312

Try 'CP_ACP' instead of 'CP_UTF8'.

 

by: StraySodPosted on 2009-09-11 at 08:19:29ID: 25310434

thank you for your reply jkr,

CP_ACP doesn't work at all.

 

by: pgnatyukPosted on 2009-09-11 at 10:28:55ID: 25311658

@StraySod: are you kidding us?
Check GetLastError, you have a problem with the buffer size or something like that. CP_ACP is a kind of default for these functions.
Here you will find an opposite opinion:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/System/Windows__Programming/MFC/Q_24280030.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+multibytetowidechar

Here you will find the code and explanations:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/System/Windows__Programming/MFC/Q_24707145.html

 

by: itsmeandnobodyelsePosted on 2009-09-11 at 11:12:07ID: 25312039

>>>> int sourceLength = cs.GetLength();
>>>> char* translated = new char[sourceLength + 1];

I assume your output buffer is too short. UTF-8 is 8-bit. Nevertheless it converts ANSI characters beyond ASCII (7-bit) to a multi-byte sequence beginning with a & and ending with a ;. Try

      char* translated = new char[sourceLength + 1024];  // don't be stingy

and use the CP_UTF8. If that doesn't work you could try to first convert from wide national chars to ANSI, then from ANSI to UNICODE and finally to UTF-8. You also could try to using a UNICODE font like Lucida UNICODE instead of your current font.

If things still are wrong, check your original 'wide string' by looking at the hex bytes and post them here.

 

 

by: pgnatyukPosted on 2009-09-11 at 11:58:24ID: 25312456

itsmeandnobodyelse, welcome to the club. :)

If the source string is ANSI with characters code above 127, it is only 2 steps:

1. MultiByteToWideChar with CP_ACP

2. WideCharToMultiByte with CP_UTF8

I think, you proposed a very long way:

1. WideCharToMultiByte with CP_ACP (or with UTF8?)

2. MultiByteToWideChar with CP_ACP (or with UTF8?)

3. WideCharToMultiByte with CP_UTF8

I think for this question everything should work with WideCharToMultiByte and CP_UTF8. The problem is in the buffer size.

UTF8 is a multibyte but each character can be 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 bytes. Right?

Here is a boring explanation about MultiByteToWideChar:

http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2005/04/19/409566.aspx

 

by: StraySodPosted on 2009-09-22 at 08:13:04ID: 31627558

Thank you! It was the buffer size. Sorry for no response, didn't have enough time to check the thread and fix the bug. Now it works fine.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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