Output unicode symbol π and ≈ in c++ win32 console application - c++

Question

I am fairly new to programming, but it seems like the π(pi) symbol is not in the standard set of outputs that ASCII handles.
I am wondering if there is a way to get the console to output the π symbol, so as to express exact answers regarding certain mathematical formulas.

Answer 1

I'm not really sure about any other methods (such as those that use the STL) but you can do this with Win32 using WriteConsoleW:
HANDLE hConsoleOutput = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
LPCWSTR lpPiString = L"\u03C0";
DWORD dwNumberOfCharsWritten;
WriteConsoleW(hConsoleOutput, lpPiString, 1, &dwNumberOfCharsWritten, NULL);

Answer 2

The Microsoft CRT is not very Unicode-savvy, so it may be necessary to bypass it and use WriteConsole() directly. I'm assuming you already compile for Unicode, else you need to explicitly use WriteConsoleW()

Answer 3

I'm in the learning phase of this, so correct me if I get something wrong.
It seems like this is a three step process:
Use wide versions of cout, cin, string and so on. So: wcout, wcin, wstring
Before using a stream set it to an Unicode-friendly mode.
Configure the targeted console to use an Unicode-capable font.
You should now be able to rock those funky åäös.
Example:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <io.h>
// We only need one mode definition in this example, but it and several other
// reside in the header file fcntl.h.
#define _O_WTEXT 0x10000 /* file mode is UTF16 (translated) */
// Possibly useful if we want UTF-8
//#define _O_U8TEXT 0x40000 /* file mode is UTF8 no BOM (translated) */
void main(void)
{
// To be able to write UFT-16 to stdout.
_setmode(_fileno(stdout), _O_WTEXT);
// To be able to read UTF-16 from stdin.
_setmode(_fileno(stdin), _O_WTEXT);
wchar_t* hallå = L"Hallå, värld!";
std::wcout << hallå << std::endl;
// It's all Greek to me. Go UU!
std::wstring etabetapi = L"η β π";
std::wcout << etabetapi << std::endl;
std::wstring myInput;
std::wcin >> myInput;
std:: wcout << myInput << L" has " << myInput.length() << L" characters." << std::endl;
// This character won't show using Consolas or Lucida Console
std::wcout << L"♔" << std::endl;
}