[ARROW-16617] [C++] WinErrorMessage() should not use Windows ANSI APIs

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 9.0.0
• Component/s: C++, Python
• Labels: pull-request-available
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/31970
• Assignee: Kouhei Sutou
• Reporter: Antoine Pitrou
• Created: 19/May/22 16:47
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 11:45
• Resolved: 30/May/22 13:51

Description

The WinErrorMessage utility function calls FormatMessageA in order to get the Windows error message. This unfortunately returns the message encoded using the current "codepage", which can give unreadable results if there are non-ASCII characters in it.

Instead, we should probably use FormatMessageW and then convert to UTF-8. At least PyArrow expects the error message in a Status to be utf8-encoded.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #13203