[MESOS-7335] Blocked: Replace `wstring` with `u16string`

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Accepted
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Labels: unicode windows

Environment

Windows 10

• External issue URL: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Feedback/Details/1403302
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Andrew Schwartzmeyer
• Created: 31/Mar/17 20:59
• Updated: 02/Oct/18 21:48

Description

The most correct C++ type for UTF-16 data is std::u16string, but due to a known bug in MSVC, the std::codecvt_utf8_utf16 converter cannot be used with char16_t / u16string types, so we must use wchar_t / wstring types for now.

I am deeply sorry for the statement I made about the availability of this fix. This is not fixed in Visual Studio 2017.

This issue requires a binary breaking change to the VC++ libraries, so we cannot ship this fix in an update to the libraries. Visual Studio 2017 shipped with v141 of the libraries, which is a minor update and binary compatible with v140 (the version shipped with Visual Studio 2015).

This bug will be fixed in the next major version of the Visual C++ Libraries.

Thanks,
Steve Wishnousky
Software Engineer II - Visual C++ Libraries
[e-mail]