Convert a char String to wchar_t String? (In PIC24 XC16 C, not C++) (pchidley)

XC16 gives us wchar_t and I can create a wide string using L"this is a wide string" But I already have an 8 bit string and I need to convert it to a wchar_t string. Spent the afternoon searching with no luck. Most of the solutions use C++ functions we don..