wcstombs - convert a wide-character string to a multibyte string
#include <stdlib.h>
size_t wcstombs(char *dest, const wchar_t *src, size_t n);
If dest
is not NULL, the wcstombs()
function converts the wide-character string src
to a multibyte
string starting at dest
. At most n
bytes are written
to dest
. The sequence of characters placed in dest
begins in the initial shift state. The conversion can stop for three
reasons:
A wide character has been encountered that can not be represented
as a multibyte sequence (according to the current locale). In this case,
(size_t) -1
is returned.
The length limit forces a stop. In this case, the number of bytes
written to dest
is returned, but the shift state at this point
is lost.
The wide-character string has been completely converted,
including the terminating null wide character (L'\0'). In this case, the
conversion ends in the initial shift state. The number of bytes written
to dest
, excluding the terminating null byte ('\0'), is
returned.
The programmer must ensure that there is room for at least n
bytes at dest
.
If dest
is NULL, n
is ignored, and the conversion
proceeds as above, except that the converted bytes are not written out
to memory, and no length limit exists.
In order to avoid the case 2 above, the programmer should make sure
n
is greater than or equal to
wcstombs(NULL,src,0)+1
.
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value |
wcstombs() | Thread safety | MT-Safe |
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C99.
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