Example: char16_t('1') != u'1' is possible.

The numeric value of char16_t is defined to be Unicode code point, which is same to the ASCII value and UTF-8 for 7-bit chars. However, char is not guaranteed to have an encoding which is compatible with ASCII. For example, '1' in EBCDIC is 241.

I found three places in the standard casting narrow char literals: bitset::bitset, bitset::to_string and quoted.

PJ confirmed this issue and says he has a solution used in their <filesystem> implementation, and he may want to propose it to the standard.

The solution in my mind, for now, is to make those default arguments magical, where the "magic" can be implemented with a C11 _Generic selection (works in clang):

#define _G(T, literal) _Generic(T{}, \
      char: literal, \
      wchar_t: L ## literal, \
      char16_t: u ## literal, \
      char32_t: U ## literal)

  _G(char16_t, '1') == u'1'