MBSRTOWCS(3) BSD Library Functions Manual MBSRTOWCS(3)NAMEmbsrtowcs — converts a multibyte character string to a wide-character
string (restartable)
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <wchar.h>
size_t
mbsrtowcs(wchar_t * restrict pwcs, const char ** restrict s, size_t n,
mbstate_t * restrict ps);
DESCRIPTION
The mbsrtowcs() converts the multibyte character string indirectly
pointed to by s to the corresponding wide-character string, and stores it
in the array pointed to by pwcs. The conversion stops due to the follow‐
ing reasons:
· The conversion reaches a nul byte. In this case, the nul byte is
also converted.
· The mbsrtowcs() has already stored n wide characters.
· The conversion encounters an invalid character.
Each character will be converted as if mbrtowc(3) is continuously called.
After conversion, if pwcs is not a null pointer, the pointer object
pointed to by s is a null pointer (if the conversion is stopped due to
reaching a nul byte) or the first byte of the character just after the
last character converted.
If pwcs is not a null pointer and the conversion is stopped due to reach‐
ing a nul byte, the mbsrtowcs() places the state object pointed to by ps
to an initial state after the conversion has taken place.
The behaviour of mbsrtowcs() is affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the
current locale.
These are the special cases:
s == NULL || *s == NULL
Undefined (may cause the program to crash).
pwcs == NULL The conversion has taken place, but the resulting wide-
character string was discarded. In this case, the pointer
object pointed to by s is not modified and n is ignored.
ps == NULL The mbsrtowcs() uses its own internal state object to keep
the conversion state, instead of ps mentioned in this man‐
ual page.
Calling any other functions in Standard C Library (libc,
-lc) never changes the internal state of mbsrtowcs(), which
is initialized at startup time of the program.
RETURN VALUESmbsrtowcs() returns:
0 or positive
The value returned is the number of elements stored in the
array pointed to by pwcs, except for a terminating nul wide
character (if any). If pwcs is not NULL and the value
returned is equal to n, the wide-character string pointed
to by pwcs is not nul-terminated. If pwcs is a null
pointer, the value returned is the number of elements to
contain the whole string converted, except for a terminat‐
ing nul wide character.
(size_t)-1 The array indirectly pointed to by s contains a byte
sequence forming invalid character. In this case,
mbsrtowcs() sets errno to indicate the error.
ERRORSmbsrtowcs() may cause an error in the following case:
[EILSEQ] The pointer pointed to by s points to an invalid or
incomplete multibyte character.
[EINVAL] ps points to an invalid or uninitialized mbstate_t
object.
SEE ALSOmbrtowc(3), mbstowcs(3), setlocale(3)STANDARDS
The mbsrtowcs() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9899/AMD1:1995 (“ISO C90,
Amendment 1”). The restrict qualifier is added at ISO/IEC 9899:1999
(“ISO C99”).
BSD February 4, 2002 BSD
