Wide character string
A wide-character string is a null-terminated array of wchar_t values representing a sequence of wide characters.
Modern C
A wide character string is a null-terminated array of wchar_t elements representing a sequence of wide characters.
- How it is used
- Provides a destination for converting multibyte strings into sequences of wide characters.
- How deep it goes
- Works through length calculation and allocation for conversion, without developing a general wide-string interface.
- Examples
- Uses a conversion function that allocates mblen + 1 wchar_t elements and calls mbsrtowcs.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch by counting multibyte characters, allocating space for a terminator, and converting with mbsrtowcs.
Modern C, Third Edition
A wide character string is a null-terminated array of wchar_t values representing characters from an extended character set.
- How it is used
- Handles extended-character strings when ordinary byte-string operations are insufficient.
- How deep it goes
- Defines representation and conversion, then addresses string functions, invalid input, and wchar_t portability without fully specifying encodings.
- Examples
- Uses mbsrdup to allocate and populate a wide string after measuring a multibyte source.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via C library functions to convert multibyte strings and perform wide-character string operations.
Read how Modern C, Third Edition explains wide character string →
Related concepts
- mbsrtowcsproduced by · mbsrtowcs is a C standard-library function that converts a restartable multibyte character string to a wide-character string.
- stringkind of · A string is a programming-language value representing an ordered sequence of characters or character units as text.
- wide characterhas part · A wide character is a value of type wchar_t representing one character from an extended character set.
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