Playing with unicode chars for data packing purposes:

utf8.cpp

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    const char* foo = "✓";
    const char* foo2 = "\xe2\x9c\x93";

    const char* bar = "é";
    const char* baz = "a";
    cout << "✓ char literal: " << sizeof('✓') << " bytes" << endl;
    cout << "✓ str linteral: " << sizeof("✓") << " bytes" << endl;
    cout << "✓: " << sizeof(foo[0]) << " bytes" << endl;
    cout << "\\x notation (✓): " << sizeof(foo2[0]) << " bytes" << endl;
    cout << "é: " << sizeof(bar[0]) << " bytes" << endl;
    cout << "a: " << sizeof(bar[0]) << " bytes" << endl;

    char32_t check = u'\xe2\x9c\x93';
    long checkint = (long) check;
    char32_t check2= static_cast<char32_t>(checkint);
    cout << "✓ to char16_t output: " << check << ", integral output: " << checkint << endl;
    cout << "long to char16_t output: " << check2 << endl;


    return 0;

/* OUTPUT: 
✓ char literal: 4 bytes
✓ str linteral: 4 bytes
✓: 1 bytes
\x notation (✓): 1 bytes
é: 1 bytes
a: 1 bytes
✓ to char16_t output: 147, integral output: 147
*/
}