Unicode Identifiers and Source Code in C++11?

Question

I find in the new C++ Standard

2.11 Identifiers                  [lex.name]
identifier:
    identifier-nondigit
    identifier identifier-nondigit
    identi         


        

Answer 1

I suggest using clang++ instead of g++. Clang is designed to be highly compatible with GCC (wikipedia-source), so you can most likely just substitute that command.

I wanted to use Greek symbols in my source code. If code readability is the goal, then it seems reasonable to use (for example) α over alpha. Especially when used in larger mathematical formulas, they can be read more easily in the source code.

To achieve this, this is a minimal working example:

> cat /tmp/test.cpp
#include 

int main()
{
    int α = 10;
    std::cout << "α = " << α << std::endl;
    return 0;
}
> clang++ /tmp/test.cpp -o /tmp/test
> /tmp/test 
α = 10