What is the difference between _tmain() and main() in C++?

Question

If I run my C++ application with the following main() method everything is OK:

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) 
{
   cout << \"There are \" << a         


        

Answer 1

_tmain is a macro that gets redefined depending on whether or not you compile with Unicode or ASCII. It is a Microsoft extension and isn't guaranteed to work on any other compilers.

The correct declaration is

 int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR *argv[]) 

If the macro UNICODE is defined, that expands to

int wmain(int argc, wchar_t *argv[])

Otherwise it expands to

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

Your definition goes for a bit of each, and (if you have UNICODE defined) will expand to

 int wmain(int argc, char *argv[])

which is just plain wrong.

std::cout works with ASCII characters. You need std::wcout if you are using wide characters.

try something like this

#include 
#include 

#if defined(UNICODE)
    #define _tcout std::wcout
#else
    #define _tcout std::cout
#endif

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR *argv[]) 
{
   _tcout << _T("There are ") << argc << _T(" arguments:") << std::endl;

   // Loop through each argument and print its number and value
   for (int i=0; i

Or you could just decide in advance whether to use wide or narrow characters. :-)

Updated 12 Nov 2013:

Changed the traditional "TCHAR" to "_TCHAR" which seems to be the latest fashion. Both work fine.

End Update