The C++ language does not specify encoding of strings. Thus, any char* array and any std::string object can use an arbitrary encoding. When using these types for interaction with native APIs and third-party libraries, you have to refer to their documentation to find out which encoding they use. The encoding used by native APIs of the operating system usually depends on the current locale. Third-party libraries often use the same encoding as native APIs, but some libraries may expect another encoding, for example, UTF-8.
A string literal (that is, each bare text you wrap in quotation marks) will use an implementation defined encoding. Since C++11, you have an option to specify the encoding your text will have:
- u8"text" will ...
