title: How to initialize a const char* and/or const std::string in C++ with a sequence of UTF-8 character?
body: <p>How to initialize a const char* and/or const std::string in C++ with a sequence of UTF-8 characters?</p>
  
  <p>I'm using a regular expression API that accepts UTF8 string as const char*. The initialization code should be platform independent.</p>