Visual Studio C++ 2015 std::codecvt with char16_t or char32_t

Old question, but for future reference: this is a known bug in Visual Studio 2015, as explained in the latest post (January 7th 2016) in this thread of MSDN Social.

The workaround for your example looks like this (I implemented your method as a free function for simplicity):

#include <codecvt>
#include <locale>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#if _MSC_VER >= 1900

std::string utf16_to_utf8(std::u16string utf16_string)
{
    std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<int16_t>, int16_t> convert;
    auto p = reinterpret_cast<const int16_t *>(utf16_string.data());
    return convert.to_bytes(p, p + utf16_string.size());
}

#else

std::string utf16_to_utf8(std::u16string utf16_string)
{
    std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<char16_t>, char16_t> convert;
    return convert.to_bytes(utf16_string);
}

#endif

int main()
{
    std::cout << utf16_to_utf8(u"Élémentaire, mon cher Watson!") << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

Hopefully, the problem will be fixed in future releases, otherwise the #if condition will need refining. UPDATE: nope, not fixed in VS 2017. Therefore, I've updated the preprocessor conditional to >= 1900 (initially was == 1900).

Define the missing symbol in a cpp file.

// Apparently Microsoft forgot to define a symbol for codecvt.
// Works with /MT only
#include <locale>

#if (!_DLL) && (_MSC_VER >= 1900 /* VS 2015*/) && (_MSC_VER <= 1911 /* VS 2017 */)
std::locale::id std::codecvt<char16_t, char, _Mbstatet>::id;
#endif

This worked for me in VS2017:

std::wstring utf8_to_utf16(std::string utf8_string)
{
   return std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<wchar_t>, wchar_t>{}.from_bytes(utf8_string);
}

std::string utf16_to_utf8(std::wstring utf16_string)
{
    return std::wstring_convert<std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<wchar_t>, wchar_t>{}.to_bytes(utf16_string);
}