What is the difference between 'WCHAR' and 'wchar_t'?

Question

Is there any practical difference between WCHAR and wchar_t?

Answer 1

wchar_t is a distinct type, defined by the C++ standard.

WCHAR is nonstandard, and as far as I know, exists only on Windows. However, it is simply a typedef (or possibly a macro) for wchar_t, so it makes no practical difference.

Older versions of MSVC did not have wchar_t as a first-class type—instead it was simply a typedef for short

Most likely, Microsoft introduced WCHAR to represent a "wide character type" across any compiler version, whether or not wchar_t existed as a native type.

You should use wchar_t in your code though. That's what it's for.