How to print Greek letter delta in c++

Will Callender picture Will Callender · Oct 26, 2016 · Viewed 14.4k times · Source

I have a small console based application that will solve physics equations. I am trying to ask the user if they want to find the ΔV in a given situation, but I can't figure out how to print the letter delta to the console. Here's my code:

cout << "Select what you would like to find:\n"
<< "1 - Acceleration" << endl
<< "2 - Initial Velocity" << endl
<< "3 - Final Velocity" << endl
<< "4 -  ΔV" << "\n\n";
cin >> choice;

This does not print "ΔV" to the console. The "Δ" doesn't even display in my IDE (Dev-C++), instead being displayed as a question mark. If anyone knows how I can print Δ to the console I would highly appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks in advance!

Answer

101010 picture 101010 · Oct 27, 2016

If your platform supports it, you could use unicode escape characters. For Greek capital delta the code is \u0394:

#include <iostream>
int
main() {
  std::cout << "\u0394V" << '\n';
}

output: ΔV

Live Demo

For the future reader, bellow I give the escape sequences for Greek capital letters:

Letter   Description  Escape-Sequence
-------------------------------------
A        Alpha        \u0391
B        Beta         \u0392
Γ        Gamma        \u0393
Δ        Delta        \u0394
Ε        Epsilon      \u0395
Ζ        Zeta         \u0396
Η        Eta          \u0397
Θ        Theta        \u0398
Ι        Iota         \u0399
Κ        Kappa        \u039A
Λ        Lambda       \u039B
Μ        Mu           \u039C
Ν        Nu           \u039D
Ξ        Xi           \u039E
Ο        Omicron      \u039F
Π        Pi           \u03A0
Ρ        Rho          \u03A1
Σ        Sigma        \u03A3
Τ        Tau          \u03A4
Υ        Upsilon      \u03A5
Φ        Phi          \u03A6
Χ        Chi          \u03A7
Ψ        Psi          \u03A8
Ω        Omega        \u03A9

and for Greek lower letters:

Letter   Description  Escape-Sequence
-------------------------------------
α        Alpha        \u03B1
β        Beta         \u03B2
γ        Gamma        \u03B3
δ        Delta        \u03B4
ε        Epsilon      \u03B5
ζ        Zeta         \u03B6
η        Eta          \u03B7
θ        Theta        \u03B8
ι        Iota         \u03B9
κ        Kappa        \u03BA
λ        Lambda       \u03BB
μ        Mu           \u03BC
ν        Nu           \u03BD
ξ        Xi           \u03BE
ο        Omicron      \u03BF
π        Pi           \u03C0
ρ        Rho          \u03C1
σ        Sigma        \u03C3
τ        Tau          \u03C4
υ        Upsilon      \u03C5
φ        Phi          \u03C6
χ        Chi          \u03C7
ψ        Psi          \u03C8
ω        Omega        \u03C9

Live Demo

For people interested on other alphabets, as well as on other symbols, you could find more supported escape characters here.