Don't forget to #define UNICODE if you want Unicode

Don’t forget to #define UNICODE if you want Unicode

Date:	July 15, 2004 / year-entry #281
Tags:	code
Orig Link:	https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040715-00/?p=38433
Comments:	9
Summary:	I answered this comment directly, but it deserves reiteration with wider visibility. If you don't #define UNICODE, you get ANSI by default. If you want to see characters beyond the boring 7-bit ASCII, make sure you are using a font that can display those characters. I am assuming a level of competence where issues like...

I answered this comment directly, but it deserves reiteration with wider visibility.

If you don't #define UNICODE, you get ANSI by default.

If you want to see characters beyond the boring 7-bit ASCII, make sure you are using a font that can display those characters.

I am assuming a level of competence where issues like this go without saying, so that I can dig into the more advanced topics without having to explain all the basics, but I have to accept that people of all levels of programming experience read my stuff.

But the second part raises an advanced question: How do you find a font that can display the characters you want? What if the characters can come from a source outside your control? We'll look at this tomorrow.

Comments (9)

Gene Hamilton says:

July 15, 2004 at 9:43 am

Also what about "#define _UNICODE"?
Skywing says:

July 15, 2004 at 12:03 pm

_UNICODE is for the C runtime’s TCHAR support, i.e. _tcscpy (–> wcscpy vs strcpy). This is distinct from UNICODE, which turns, say, CreateWindowEx into CreateWindowExW instead of CreateWindowExA.
Jack Mathews says:

July 15, 2004 at 12:20 pm

If one were to say just call the W versions of functions and structures explicitly, would there be a real reason to define UNICODE ?

Just curious, even though typing W all the time is a pain, it could allow a project to have a steady migration over to unicode.

Jack
Raymond Chen says:

July 15, 2004 at 12:36 pm

Yes you can switch over gradually by manually inserting W’s and L’s on a per-call basis.
Matt says:

July 15, 2004 at 3:04 pm

Where does Microsoft document this?

It seems like the first rule of _UNICODE is that you don’t talk about _UNICODE. If you don’t know about it in the first place, it’s awfully hard to figure it all out from Microsoft’s documentation.
Raymond Chen says:

July 15, 2004 at 3:29 pm

??? If it’s a secret it’s a really badly kept one. #1 hit for _UNICODE on MSDN is http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vccore/html/_core_generic.2d.text_mappings_in_tchar..h.asp
Centaur says:

July 15, 2004 at 11:09 pm

That’s the way from “I know there is a conditional named _UNICODE” to “I know what _UNICODE does”. Though, the inverse is also easy; the page about strcpy mentions both _UNICODE and _MBCS.
Raymond Chen says:

July 16, 2004 at 10:27 am

http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2004/05/31/144893.aspx
Ankur Goel says:

July 16, 2004 at 10:44 am

Use Arial Unicode for all your font needs :)

Comments are closed.

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