Parse string to LPCWSTR
boost, boost-filesystem, c++, winapi
Solution
You can use `MultibyteToWideChar()` function to perform the actual conversion (MSDN page). There is no need to add slashes - they are just escape sequences which represent a single `'\'` in your program code.
Problem
I am working with boost-filesystem to search all the files in a concrete path. I also want to retrieve this file's creation data, last opening and last update so as I am working in Windows I need to use the GetFileTime (which requires a HANDLE that I will get by the CreateFile function. The point is that by boost filesystem I get a string such as string filename="C:\Users\MyUser\Desktop\PDN.pdf"; and I need to convert this string to a LPCWSTR. Because of this I have done several tries which have all failed, for example: ``` HANDLE hFile = CreateFile((LPCWSTR)fileName.c_str(), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, NULL, NULL); ``` But when doing this, it succeded: ``` HANDLE hFile = CreateFile(L"C:\\Users\\MyUSer\\Desktop\\PDN.pdf", GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, NULL, NULL); ``` So my question is, how could I parse a string to a PWSTR using a string variable? And if possible (I guess no), is there any function that will change the original path adding a slash where finds another slash? Thanks a lot EDITED: This is the way I have done it after what I have read in here: wstring fileFullPathWstring = winAPII.stringToWstring(iter->path().string()); HANDLE hFile = CreateFile(fileFullPathWstring.c_str(), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, NULL, NULL); Using the function: ``` wstring WinAPIIteraction::stringToWstring(string stringName){ int len; int slength = (int)stringName.length() + 1; len = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, stringName.c_str(), slength, 0, 0); wchar_t* buf = new wchar_t[len]; MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, stringName.c_str(), slength, buf, len); std::wstring r(buf); delete[] buf; return r; } ```