Output Unicode to console Using C++, in Windows

Question

I'm still learning C++, so bear with me and my sloppy code. The compiler I use is Dev C++. I want to be able to output Unicode characters to the Console using cout. Whenver i try things like:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "Hello World!
";
    std::cout << "Blah blah blah some gibberish unicode: ?????
";
    system("PAUSE");
    return 0;
}

It outputs strange characters to the console, like μA■Gg. Why does it do that, and how can I get to to display ?????? Or is this not possible with Windows?

Answer 1

What about std::wcout ?

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    std::wcout << L"Hello World!" << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

This is the standard wide-characters output stream.

Still, as Adrian pointed out, this doesn't address the fact cmd, by default, doesn't handle Unicode outputs. This can be addressed by manually configuring the console, like described in Adrian's answer:

• Starting cmd with the /u argument;
• Calling chcp 65001 to change the output format;
• And setting a unicode font in the console (like Lucida Console Unicode).

You can also try to use _setmode(_fileno(stdout), _O_U16TEXT);, which require fcntl.h and io.h (as described in this answer, and documented in this blog post).