C++ TCHAR[] to string

Question

Hello everyone

I have this method which receives a path through a TCHAR szFileName[] variable, which contains something like C:\app\...\Failed\

I'd like to sort through it so I can verify if the name of the last folder on that path is in fact, "Failed"

I thought that using something like this would work:

std::wstring Path = szFileName;

string dirpath2;
dirpath2 = Path.substr(0,5); 

But I get the following error:

Error 6 error C2679: binary '=' : no operator found which takes a right-hand operand of type 'std::basic_string<_Elem,_Traits,_Ax>' (or there is no acceptable conversion)

Needless to say, I'm very new to C++, and I've been looking for an answer for a while now, but I haven't had any luck, so any help would be appreciated :)

Answer 1

Either you’re consistently using wstring (the wide character variant) or string (the “normal” variant).

Since you’re getting a TCHAR (which can be either wchar_t or char, depending on compiler flags), the appropriate type to use would be a tstring, but that doesn’t exist. However, you can define a typedef for it:

typedef std::basic_string<TCHAR> tstring;

Now you can consistently use the same string type, tstring, for all your operations.

Answer 2

dirpath2 has to be a std::wstring as well. There are ways to convert between the two, but they involve changing the character encoding and that seems like more than you're asking for.

I like to simply not use TCHAR. Today, there is rarely is there a need to enable or disable the UNICODE macros and create both an ASCII and a Unicode version of a program. Just always use wstring, wchar_t, and the Windows API functions that end in 'W'.

If you're working on something where you don't have control over the above, Konrad's typedef answer is more practical than mine.