Unicode Topics

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On Windows NT platforms, MFC supports the Unicode standard for encoding wide characters. Unicode is not presently supported on Windows 95.

Note   The Unicode versions of the MFC libraries are not copied to your hard drive unless you select them during a Custom installation. They are not copied during other types of installation. If you attempt to build or run an MFC Unicode application without the MFC Unicode files, you may get errors.

To copy the files to your hard drive, rerun Setup, choose Custom installation, clear all other components except "Microsoft Foundation Class Libraries," click the Details button, and select both "Static Library for Unicode" and "Shared Library for Unicode."

The Unicode versions of the MFC libraries are described below:

Release Debug Description
UAFXCW.lib,
.pdb		 UAFXCWD.lib,
.pdb		 Unicode MFC static link library
Release Debug Description
MFC42U.lib,
.dbg, def, .dll, .map, .pdb, .prf		 MFC42UD.lib,
.def, .dll, .map, .pdb		 Unicode MFC import library
(see notes below for explanation of file extensions)
MFCD42UD.lib,
.def, .dll, .map, .pdb		 Unicode MFC import library for database
MFCN42UD.lib,
.def, .dll, .map, .pdb		 Unicode MFC import library for network (sockets)
MFCO42UD.lib,
.def, .dll, .map, .pdb		 Unicode MFC DLL for Active technologies
MFCS42U.lib,
.pdb		 MFCS42UD.lib,
.pdb		 Unicode MFC import library containing code that must be statically linked in an application or DLL

File types:

  • Import library files have the extension (.lib).

  • Dynamic link library files have the extension (.dll).

  • Module definition (.def) files are text files that contain statements for defining an .exe or .dll.

  • Map (.map) files are text files that contain information that the linker uses when linking a program.

  • Library (.lib) files are used in conjunction with the DLL versions of MFC. These files contain code that must be statically linked in the application or DLL.

  • Program database (.pdb) files contain debugging and project state information.

  • Debug (.dbg) files contain information (COFF FPO, and CodeView) that the Visual C++ Debugger uses.

For detailed information on naming conventions, see Naming Conventions for MFC DLLs and Library Naming Conventions.

For information on using Unicode with MFC, see International Programming Topics and Strings: Unicode and Multibyte Character Set (MBCS) Support.