I think the most portable way to do this is to use the user selected locale which is achieved by setting the locale to "" (empty string).
std::locale::global(std::locale(""));
That sets the locale to whatever was in use where the program was run and it effects the standard character conversion routines (std::mbsrtowcs & std::wcsrtombs) that convert between multi-byte and wide-string characters.
Then you can use those functions to convert from the system/user selected multi-byte characters (such as UTF-8) to system standard wide character codes that can be used in functions like std::tolower that operate on one character at a time.
This is important because multi-byte character sets like UTF-8 can not be converted using single character operations like with std::tolower().
Once you have converted the wide string version to upper/lower case it can then be converted back to the system/user multibyte character set for printing to the console.
// Convert from multi-byte codes to wide string codes
std::wstring mb_to_ws(std::string const& mb)
{
std::wstring ws;
std::mbstate_t ps{};
char const* src = mb.data();
std::size_t len = 1 + mbsrtowcs(0, &src, 3, &ps);
ws.resize(len);
src = mb.data();
mbsrtowcs(&ws[0], &src, ws.size(), &ps);
if(src)
throw std::runtime_error("invalid multibyte character after: '"
+ std::string(mb.data(), src) + "'");
ws.pop_back();
return ws;
}
// Convert from wide string codes to multi-byte codes
std::string ws_to_mb(std::wstring const& ws)
{
std::string mb;
std::mbstate_t ps{};
wchar_t const* src = ws.data();
std::size_t len = 1 + wcsrtombs(0, &src, 0, &ps);
mb.resize(len);
src = ws.data();
wcsrtombs(&mb[0], &src, mb.size(), &ps);
if(src)
throw std::runtime_error("invalid wide character");
mb.pop_back();
return mb;
}
int main()
{
// set locale to the one chosen by the user
// (or the one set by the system default)
std::locale::global(std::locale(""));
try
{
string NotLowerCase = "Grüßen";
std::cout << NotLowerCase << '\n';
// convert system/user multibyte character codes
// to wide string versions
std::wstring ws1 = mb_to_ws(NotLowerCase);
std::wstring ws2;
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < ws1.length(); i++) {
// use the system/user locale
ws2 += std::tolower(ws1[i], std::locale(""));
}
// convert wide string character codes back
// to system/user multibyte versions
string LowerCase = ws_to_mb(ws2);
std::cout << LowerCase << '\n';
}
catch(std::exception const& e)
{
std::cerr << e.what() << '\n';
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
catch(...)
{
std::cerr << "Unknown exception." << '\n';
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Code not heavily tested
ßtranslates toSS, whereasSSmay be translated to eitherßorssdepending on the context? – Statolith