stringstream and french locale (French_France.1252)

Question

std::stringstream stream_french;
stream_french.imbue(std::locale("")); // French_France.1252
stream_french << 1000;
std::string value_french = stream_french.str();

This code will convert 1000 to string "1 000" but the value of value_french[1] is -96 and not 32, why is that ?

value_french[0] = 49
value_french[1] = -96 
value_french[2] = 48
value_french[3] = 48 
value_french[3] = 48

If I do

stream_french << "1 000";

The value of value_french[1] is 32. The error seems to be related to the signedess of char, but why is it only affecting white spaces when doing conversions ?

Answer 1

That -96 is the signed equivalent of 160, i.e. 0xA0; if you go and check the Windows 1252 codepage table, you'll see that such character is

A0 = U+00A0 : NO-BREAK SPACE

which is a space that don't allow an automatic line break:

Text-processing software typically assumes that an automatic line break may be inserted anywhere a space character occurs; a non-breaking space prevents this happening (provided the software recognises the character, of course). For example, if the text "100 km" will not quite fit at the end of a line, the software may insert a line break between "100" and "km". To avoid this undesirable behaviour, the editor may choose to use a non-breaking space between "100" and "km". This guarantees that the text "100 km" will not be broken: if it does not fit at the end of a line it is moved in its entirety to the next line.

As with "100 km", also with "1 000" it's clear that it's not desirable to have a line break between the 1 and the three 0, so a non-breaking space is used; quite clever indeed.

To make it definitely clear: with a "normal" space:

1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000

with a non-breaking space:

1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000 1 000

(if you don't see any difference, try to zoom in/out with the font size of the browser)