Curl replacing \u in response to \\u in c++ - c++

Question

I am sending a request using libcurl in windows and the response I get has some universal characters in them that start with \u. Libcurl is not recognizing this universal character and as a result, it escapes the \ turning the universal character to \\u.
Is there any way to fix this? I have tried using str.replace but it can not replace escaped sequences
the code I used to implent this was
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <cpr/cpr.h>
int main()
{
auto r = cpr::Get(cpr::Url{"http://prayer.osamaanees.repl.co/api"});
std::string data = r.text;
std::cout << data << std::endl;
return 0;
}
This code uses the cpr library which is a wrapper for curl.
It prints out the following:
{
"times":{"Fajr":"04:58 AM","Sunrise":"06:16 AM","Dhuhr":"12:30 PM","Asr":"04:58 PM","Maghrib":"06:43 PM","Isha":"08:00 PM"},
"date":"Tuesday, 20 Mu\u1e25arram 1442AH"
}
Notice the word Mu\u1e25arram, it should have been Muḥarram but since curl escaped the \ before u it prints out as \u1e25

Answer 1

Your analysis is wrong. Libcurl is not escaping anything. Load the URL in a web browser of your choosing and look at the raw data that is actually being sent. For example, this is what I see in Firefox:
The server really is sending Mu\u1e25arram, not Muḥarram like you are expecting. And this is perfectly fine, because the server is sending back JSON data, and JSON is allowed to escape Unicode characters like this. Read the JSON spec, particularly Section 9 on how Unicode codepoints may be encoded using hexidecimal escape sequences (which is optional in JSON, but still allowed). \u1e25 is simply the JSON hex-escaped form of ḥ.
You are merely printing out the JSON content as-is, exactly as the server sent it. You are not actually parsing it at all. If you were to use an actual JSON parser, Mu\u1e25arram would be decoded to Muḥarram for you. For example, here is how Firefox parses the JSON:
It is not libcurl's job to decode JSON data. Its job is merely to give you the data that the server sends. It is your job to interpret the data afterwards as needed.

Answer 2

I would like to thank Remy for pointing out how wrong I was in thinking curl or the JSON parser was the problem when in reality I needed to convert my console to UTF-8 mode.
It was after I fixed my Codepage I was able to get the output I wanted.
For future reference, I am adding the code that fixed my problem:
We need to include Windows.h
#include <Windows.h>
Then at the start of our code:
UINT oldcp = GetConsoleOutputCP();
SetConsoleOutputCP(CP_UTF8);
After this we need to reset the console back to the original codepage with:
SetConsoleOutputCP(oldcp);