std::mbrtowc

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution support library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Strings library

Null-terminated strings

Byte strings

Multibyte strings

Wide strings

Classes

basic_string

basic_string_view (C++17)

char_traits

 

Null-terminated multibyte strings

Wide/multibyte conversions
mbsinit
mbtowc mbstowcs btowc mbrtowc mbsrtowcs mbrtoc8 (C++20) mbrtoc16 (C++11) mbrtoc32 (C++11)     mblen	wctomb wcstombs wctob wcrtomb wcsrtombs c8rtomb (C++20) c16rtomb (C++11) c32rtomb (C++11) mbrlen
Types
mbstate_t

 

Defined in header <cwchar>
std::size_t mbrtowc( wchar_t* pwc,                      const char* s,                      std::size_t n,                      std::mbstate_t* ps );

Converts a narrow multibyte character to a wide character.

If s is not a null pointer, inspects at most n bytes of the multibyte character string, beginning with the byte pointed to by s to determine the number of bytes necessary to complete the next multibyte character (including any shift sequences). If the function determines that the next multibyte character in s is complete and valid, converts it to the corresponding wide character and stores it in *pwc (if pwc is not null).

If s is a null pointer, the values of n and pwc are ignored and call is equivalent to std::mbrtowc(nullptr, "", 1, ps).

If the wide character produced is the null character, the conversion state stored in *ps is the initial shift state.

Parameters

pwc	-	pointer to the location where the resulting wide character will be written
s	-	pointer to the multibyte character string used as input
n	-	limit on the number of bytes in s that can be examined
ps	-	pointer to the conversion state used when interpreting the multibyte string

Return value

The first of the following that applies:

• ​0​ if the character converted from s (and stored in pwc if non-null) was the null character.
• the number of bytes [1...n] of the multibyte character successfully converted from s.
• static_cast<std::size_t>(-2) if the next n bytes constitute an incomplete, but so far valid, multibyte character. Nothing is written to *pwc.
• static_cast<std::size_t>(-1) if encoding error occurs. Nothing is written to *pwc, the value EILSEQ is stored in errno and the value of *ps is left unspecified.

Example

Run this code

#include <clocale>
#include <cstring>
#include <cwchar>
#include <iostream>
 
void print_mb(const char* ptr)
{
    std::mbstate_t state = std::mbstate_t(); // initial state
    const char* end = ptr + std::strlen(ptr);
    int len;
    wchar_t wc;
    while ((len = std::mbrtowc(&wc, ptr, end-ptr, &state)) > 0)
    {
        std::wcout << "Next " << len << " bytes are the character " << wc << '\n';
        ptr += len;
    }
}
 
int main()
{
    std::setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.utf8");
    // UTF-8 narrow multibyte encoding
    const char* str = "z\u00df\u6c34\U0001d10b"; // or u8"zß水𝄋"
                      // or "\x7a\xc3\x9f\xe6\xb0\xb4\xf0\x9d\x84\x8b";
    print_mb(str);
}

Output:

Next 1 bytes are the character z
Next 2 bytes are the character ß
Next 3 bytes are the character 水
Next 4 bytes are the character 𝄋

See also

mbtowc	converts the next multibyte character to wide character (function)
wcrtomb	converts a wide character to its multibyte representation, given state (function)
do_in [virtual]	converts a string from ExternT to InternT, such as when reading from file (virtual protected member function of std::codecvt<InternT,ExternT,StateT>)
C documentation for mbrtowc