Hello, We have xalan 1.111 c++ library and we are using UTF-8 encoded not UTF-16 files. Q 1 Classes like XalanDOMString returns 2-byte and we are trying to convert to STL string class. Below is the snippet code which is working but I was wondering of any efficient way of converting from XalanDOMString to STL string. Q2 : is there any way to compile xalan c++ to default to UTF-8 so that we do not need to use the below code. XalanDOMString::CharVectorType vArg; vArg = TranscodeToLocalCodePage(theArg); std::string sArg(vArg.begin(), vArg.end()); RegardsAjay