Re^2: Using setlocale() on Windows with utf-8 support

The question was: Is it possible to activate a UTF-8 locale on Windows?

It looks like it's probably working for me on Windows 11, but only if the C toolchain that built perl (or that builds your executable) is a Microsoft one.
Here's a copy'n'paste (that doesn't render exactly as it appears) of what I get, having built your demo C program (into try.exe) using Visual Studio 2022:

D:\C>try.exe German.utf8
German_Germany.utf8: M&#9500;ņrz (5 bytes)
[download]

And here's what I get using perl-5.38.0 that was built with the same Visual Studio 2022 compiler:

D:\>perl -MPOSIX -wle "$loc = POSIX::setlocale( LC_ALL, 'German.utf8' 
+); print $loc;"
German_Germany.utf8
[download]

But if I use my perl-5.38.0 that was built with a mingw-w64 port of gcc-13.1.0, then I get:

D:\>perl -MPOSIX -wle "$loc = POSIX::setlocale( LC_ALL, 'German.utf8' 
+); print $loc;"
Use of uninitialized value $loc in print at -e line 1.
[download]

And if I use that gcc-13.1.0 to build your C program into try_gcc.exe, then I get:

D:\C>try_gcc.exe German.utf8
(null): March (5 bytes)
[download]

From which I deduce that the behavior you need has not yet been ported to the mingw-w64 toolchain.
If you need it to work with the mingw-w64 compilers then you could make enquiries about that by (eg) posting to mingw-w64-public@lists.sourceforge.net .

Cheers,
Rob

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Re^3: Using setlocale() on Windows with utf-8 support by gflohr (Acolyte) on Jul 19, 2023 at 17:51 UTC
That was very helpful! Thanks! I will have a look at the mingw-64 sources and maybe file an issue. Cheers, Guido	[reply]
Re^4: Using setlocale() on Windows with utf-8 support by syphilis (Archbishop) on Sep 11, 2023 at 11:32 UTC
I will have a look at the mingw-64 sources and maybe file an issue Seems to be a runtime issue. https://winlibs.com provides a gcc-13.2.0 build with msv C runtime, and a separate gcc-13.2.0 build with universal C runtime. The one with UCRT provides the utf-8 support, the one with MSVCRT does not. Strawberry Perl uses the MSVCRT one, and if you want to build perl-5.38.0 (or earlier) with the UCRT one, you'll need to patch the perl source. But perl-5.39.2 builds straight out of the box with the UCRT one. Hence my own personal build of perl-5.39.2 (built by gcc-13.2.0 UCRT) provides the desired behaviour. It might be that the UCRT version of gcc-13.1.0 (and perhaps earlier) might also provide that utf-8 support. (I haven't tested.) In any case, one can grab the UCRT gcc-13.2.0 and check that C programs are receiving that utf-8 support. Cheers, Rob	[reply]