In TerraLib was decided to use strings in UTF-8 as well as to perform input and output operations (strings from the drivers and strings that come in the TerraLib API).

As support was created the class te::core::Char Encoding that allows the conversion of characters using the Boost.Locale.

This class is used only through static member functions and it is not possible to create instances or copies of the class.

The API for converting characters in TerraLib is defined by the CharEncoding class, shown below:

namespace te
{
  namespace core
  {
    /*!
      \enum EncodingType
 
      \brief Supported character encodings.
    */
    enum class EncodingType
    {
      UTF8,   /*!< UTF-8 encoding.               */
      CP1250, /*!< CP1250 encoding.              */
      CP1251, /*!< CP1251 encoding.              */
      CP1252, /*!< CP1252 encoding.              */
      CP1253, /*!< CP1253 encoding.              */
      CP1254, /*!< CP1254 encoding.              */
      CP1257, /*!< CP1257 encoding.              */
      LATIN1  /*!< Latin1 encoding (ISO8859-1).  */
    };
 
    /*!
      \class CharEncoding
 
      \brief A class for handling character enconding/decoding.
     */
    class CharEncoding
    {
     public:
      /*!
        \brief Convert a string in UTF-8 to the current locale encoding.
 
        \param src UTF-8 string.
 
        \exception te::Exception if the system locale cannot be retrieved.
 
        \return String encoded according to new character encoding.
       */
      static std::string fromUTF8(const std::string& src);
 
      /*!
        \brief Convert a string in UTF-8 to another character encoding.
 
        \param src UTF-8 string.
        \param to  The target character encoding.
 
        \return String encoded according to new character encoding.
       */
      static std::string fromUTF8(const std::string& src, EncodingType to);
 
      /*!
        \brief Convert a string from a current locale encoding to UTF-8.
 
        \param src  String to be encoded in UTF-8.
 
        \exception te::Exception if the system locale cannot be retrieved.
 
        \return String encoded in UTF-8.
       */
      static std::string toUTF8(const std::string& src);
 
      /*!
        \brief Convert a string from a given character encoding to UTF-8.
 
        \param src  String to be encoded in UTF-8.
 
        \return String encoded in UTF-8.
       */
      static std::string toUTF8(const std::string& src, EncodingType from);
 
      /*!
        \brief Convert a string from one character encoding to another one.
 
        \param src  String encoded according to "from" encoding type.
        \param from Current string encoding.
        \param to   New encoding for the string.
 
        \return String in a new encoding.
       */
      static std::string convert(const std::string& src, EncodingType from,
                                 EncodingType to);
      /*!
        \brief Decomposes a UTF-8 encoded string and extracts its ASCII
        characters.
 
        \note Non-ascii characters will be skipped.
 
        \param src UTF-8 encoded string.
 
        \exception te::Exception if the given string cannot be decomposed.
 
        \return ASCII String.
      */
      static std::string toASCII(const std::string& src);
      /*!
        \brief Retrive a string from a given character encoding type enum.
 
        \param et Encoding Type to be retrieved as string.
 
        \return Encoding Type as string.
       */
      static std::string getEncodingName(EncodingType et);
 
      /*!
        \brief Retrive an EncodingType from a given character encoding name.
 
        \param name Encoding name to be retrieved as enum.
 
        \return Encoding as enum.
       */
      static te::core::EncodingType getEncodingType(const std::string& name);
 
      /*!
        \brief Retrive a vector of string with all available encoding types name.
 
        \return A vector of encoding type as string.
      */
      static std::vector<std::string> getEncodingList();
    };
  }  // end namespace core
}  // end namespace te

Here is a simple example using the functions provided by CharEncoding class:

// TerraLib
#include <terralib/core/encoding/CharEncoding.h>
 
// STL
#include <iostream>
 
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
 
  std::string str = "your string";
  // from system encoding to utf8
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::toUTF8(str); 
  // from utf8 to system encoding
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::fromUTF8(str); 
  // from latin1 to utf8
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::toUTF8(str, te::core::EncodingType::LATIN1); 
  // from utf8 to latin1
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::fromUTF8(str, te::core::EncodingType::LATIN1); 
  // from latin1 to cp1254
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::convert(str, te::core::EncodingType::LATIN1,
                                        te::core::EncodingType::CP1254);
  // from utf8 to ASCII
  str = te::core::CharEncoding::toASCII(str);
}

Here is an example of using a QString in Qt components:

QString s = QString::fromUtf8("your string");
std::string varStr = s.toUtf8().data();

Note: in case it is not possible to convert a character it will be ignored.

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