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The following piece of code produces a file with a single byte when compiled in MSVC, but when compiled by GCC 8.3 it produces an empty file.

std::wofstream out("tmpUTF16BrokenBOMFile.txt", std::ios_base::binary);
const wchar_t c = 0xFE;
// Both methods dont work:
// out.write(&c, 1);
out << c;
out.flush();
out.close();
std::cout << strerror(errno) << std::endl; // results with "Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character" on GCC
Is there any reliable way to output wchar_t into a binary stream without worrying about codecvt that can suddenly kick in and break everything?
I mean I am using binary mode exactly because I don't need codecvt here.
I know that its better to use ofstream for binary output, but unfortunately usage of wofstream is part of API that I cannot change (Although I see that it is an incredibly stupid idea, at least because wchar_t size is not defined by the standard).
Update:
looks like the following custom codecvt helps if I imbue it into the stream,
but I am not sure if this is the right way:
class noconvCodecvt : public std::codecvt<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t>
public:
    virtual bool do_always_noconv() const throw() override
        return true;
                C++ streams from standard library are broken beyond repair. If you need a simple cross-platform equivalent, write a class that wraps a FILE* from <cstdio>, like there: github.com/Const-me/nanovg/blob/master/src/FontStash2/…
– Soonts
                Sep 6, 2020 at 22:58
                just avoid wide char and wide streams and use UTF-8 instead. You can link with the new MSVC stdlib to use UTF-8 as a locale in older Windows. See What is the Windows equivalent for en_US.UTF-8 locale?. Alternatively use Boost.Nowide
– phuclv
                Sep 7, 2020 at 1:56
        
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