How to convert wchar_t (or wchar_t* or CORBA::WChar*) to string?

Question

In my app I have to use CORBA::WChar* (or equivalent wchar_t*) but my program also needs to save some information to the PostgreSQL database. To insert data to PostgreSQL in C++ I use SOCI. And there's the problem because :

The following types are currently supported for use with into and use expressions:
char (for character values)
short, int, unsigned long, long long, double (for numeric values)
char*, char[], std::string (for string values)
std::tm (for datetime values)
soci::statement (for nested statements and PL/SQL cursors)
soci::blob (for Binary Large OBjects)
soci::row_id (for row identifiers)

so theres no wchar_t* or wstring supported ... and I need to convert CORBA::WChar (or wchar_t or wchar_t*) to string. How to do this?

I also have problem with wide chars (and strings), using CodeBlocks 10.5 :

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    const wchar_t *val = L"ąśżźćłóń";
    wcout << val << "\n";
    return 0;
}

shows:

E:\Temp\Untitled1.cpp||In function 'int main(int, char**)':|
E:\Temp\Untitled1.cpp|7|error: converting to execution character set: Invalid argument|
||=== Build finished: 1 errors, 0 warnings ===|

how to fix it?

I also need the code to be portable, that I can run it both on unix/linux and windows.

Answer 1

I would suggest boost::locale::conv::utf_to_utf<char>(wchar_t*) that simply convert you wchar_t* string into UTF-8 for more information please read boost::locale documentation

Answer 2

What kind of database doesn't let you store Unicode strings? My suggestion would be to use a decent database.