Copying UTF-8 data to Clipboard

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Hi,

I'm trying to put Unicode UTF-8 data directly onto the Windows clipboard. Why does this not work:

C++

HGLOBAL hGlobal = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE | GMEM_ZEROINIT, 16);
unsigned char *px = (unsigned char*) GlobalLock(hGlobal);
//a 3 byte UTF-8 character:
px[0] = 0xe0;
px[1] = 0xa0;
px[2] = 0xb0;
px[3] = 0x00;
OpenClipboard(hWnd);
EmptyClipboard();
GlobalUnlock(hGlobal);
SetClipboardData(CF_UNICODETEXT, px);
CloseClipboard();

Data always seems to go on the Clipboard as UTF-16, ie 2 bytes per code.

Any suggestions how I can achieve?

regards,

geoff

Posted 1-Oct-11 10:25am

geoff7

Updated 1-Oct-11 11:48am

v2

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Ray Radin · Answer 1 · 2011-10-01T19:15:00

Solution 1

CF_UNICODETEXT states that the data you're passing is a Unicode text, which is 2 bytes per character.
UTF-8 is multibyte per character.
They are not the same.

Convert your UTF-8 text to Unicode first, or use CF_TEXT instead.

Posted 1-Oct-11 19:15pm

Ray Radin

Updated 1-Oct-11 20:27pm

v2

Comments

geoff7 2-Oct-11 5:06am

CF_TEXT will not works as it interpretes the bytes as ANSI text and stops at the first null byte. I've tried WideCharToMultibyte (there are a few code examples on the net) but I still get the data as UTF-16. My input data is 0xeo, 0xa0, 0xbo which is a 3 byte UFT-8 and I need to put that character on the clipboard.
If CF_UTF_8 existed (!) I suppose it would be easy.

Chuck O'Toole 2-Oct-11 6:14am

I deleted my comment, it didn't make a lot of sense after I re-read it a few times. If I couldn't understand what I wrote myself, I'm not sure anyone else would have. Sorry about that.

Ray Radin 2-Oct-11 7:55am

If you want to use CF_UNICODETEXT, you need MultiByteToWideChar to convert UTF-8 to Unicode.
Not WideCharToMultiByte.

It works.
Give it a try.

There is no need for CF_UTF_8.
ANSI 0x00 is identical to UTF-8 0x00.
Any UTF-8 text can be treated as ANSI without a problem, but only for storage purpose.
For display purpose, you need to convert it to Unicode.

geoff7 2-Oct-11 15:17pm

Thanks it works! I had the functions wrong as you stated!