How does the simple ASCII "pch++" map to Unicode? How can we find the next Unicode code point in text that uses variable-length encodings like UTF-16 and UTF-8? And, very importantly: Which one is *simpler*?

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UTF-16 encoding is significantly simpler to process than UTF-8 when finding the next Unicode code point in C++ strings. While UTF-8 requires 1-4 byte units per code point with complex parsing logic (84 lines of code), UTF-16 uses only 1-2 code units with much simpler implementation (34 lines). The author questions whether UTF-8's processing complexity is justified for internal string handling, suggesting UTF-16 might be better suited for in-application Unicode processing, reserving UTF-8 for external boundaries.

Finding the Next Unicode Code Point in Strings: UTF-8 vs. UTF-16