c++ - Python 3.3 C string handling (wchar_t vs char) -

i'm trying embed python 3.3 in our c++ project. python 3.3 seems have introduced utf-8 preferred storage, pep 393: "the specification chooses utf-8 recommended way of exposing strings c code."

i wrote initialization code, seems simple , intuitive:

#include <python.h> #include "log.h"  void python_init(const char *program_name) {     if (not py_isinitialized()) {         py_setprogramname(program_name);         py_initialize();         const char *py_version = py_getversion();         log::msg("initialized python %s", py_version);     } } 

but compiling fails:

/home/jj/devel/openage/src/engine/python.cpp:13:3: error: no matching function call 'py_setprogramname'                 py_setprogramname(program_name);                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /usr/include/python3.3/pythonrun.h:25:18: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion 'const char *' 'wchar_t *' 1st argument pyapi_func(void) py_setprogramname(wchar_t *);                  ^ 

so yeah, need wchar_t * here, don't see reason why char * not job here.

what best practice here? convert char * wchar * , deal locales (mbstowcs), introduce unnecessary dynamic memory allocs?

also, if python decided go wchar entirely, why py_getversion() return char * expected it?

i found similar question python <3.3 , hope python 3.3 different (pep 393?).

the code has cross-platform capable.

=> what's fast , efficient solution pass c strings (char *) python 3.3?

// convert sequence of strings array of wchar pointers pywintypes_export void pywinobject_freewchararray(lpwstr *wchars, dword str_cnt); 

can use this...?