\end{verbatim}
Of course, it would be nearly impossibly to write such programs if it had to
-be done this way (try to imagine the number of {\tt #ifdef UNICODE} an average
+be done this way (try to imagine the number of {\tt \#ifdef UNICODE} an average
program would have had!). Luckily, there is another way - see the next
section.
In wxWindows, the code fragment froim above should be written instead:
\begin{verbatim}
- wxChar ch = T('*');
- wxString s = T("Hello, world!");
+ wxChar ch = wxT('*');
+ wxString s = wxT("Hello, world!");
int len = s.Len();
\end{verbatim}
-What happens here? First of all, you see that there are no more {\tt #ifdef}s
+What happens here? First of all, you see that there are no more {\tt \#ifdef}s
at all. Instead, we define some types and macros which behave differently in
the Unicode and ANSI builds and allows us to avoid using conditional
compilation in the program itself.
We have a {\tt wxChar} type which maps either on {\tt char} or {\tt wchar\_t}
depending on the mode in which program is being compiled. There is no need for
a separate type for strings though, because the standard
-\helpref{wxString}{wxstring} supports Unicode, i.e. it stores iether ANSI or
-Unicode strings depending on the mode.
+\helpref{wxString}{wxstring} supports Unicode, i.e. it stores either ANSI or
+Unicode strings depending on the compile mode.
-Finally, there is a special {\tt T()} macro which should enclose all literal
+Finally, there is a special {\tt wxT()} macro which should enclose all literal
strings in the program. As it's easy to see comparing the last fragment with
the one above, this macro expands to nothing in the (usual) ANSI mode and
prefixes {\tt 'L'} to its argument in the Unicode mode.
The important conclusion is that if you use {\tt wxChar} instead of
{\tt char}, avoid using C style strings and use {\tt wxString} instead and
-don't forget to enclose all string literals inside {\tt T()} macro, your
+don't forget to enclose all string literals inside {\tt wxT()} macro, your
program automatically becomes (almost) Unicode compliant!
Just let us state once again the rules:
\begin{itemize}
\item Always use {\tt wxChar} instead of {\tt char}
-\item Always enclose literal string constants in {\tt T()} macro unless
+\item Always enclose literal string constants in {\tt wxT()} macro unless
they're already converted to the right representation (another standard
-wxWindows macro {\tt \_()} does it, so there is no need for {\tt T()} in this
+wxWindows macro {\tt \_()} does it, so there is no need for {\tt wxT()} in this
case) or you intend to pass the constant directly to an external function
which doesn't accept wide-character strings.
\item Use {\tt wxString} instead of C style strings.
Unicode or ANSI strings and which thus makes it unnecessary to ever perform
any convertions in the program).
-To get a ANSI string from a wxString, you may use
-\helpref{mb\_str()}{wxstringmbstr} function which always returns an ANSI
+To get a ANSI string from a wxString, you may use the
+mb\_str() function which always returns an ANSI
string (independently of the mode - while the usual
\helpref{c\_str()}{wxstringcstr} returns a pointer to the internal
representation which is either ASCII or Unicode). More rarely used, but still
-useful, is \helpref{wc\_str()}{wxstringwcstr} function which always returns
+useful, is wc\_str() function which always returns
the Unicode string.
% TODO describe fn_str(), wx_str(), wxCharBuf classes, ...