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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHONThe Linux Programming Interface

WCSTOMBS(3)               Linux Programmer's Manual              WCSTOMBS(3)

NAME         top

       wcstombs - convert a wide-character string to a multibyte string

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <stdlib.h>

       size_t wcstombs(char *dest, const wchar_t *src, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION         top

       If dest is not a NULL pointer, 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 conversion starts in the
       initial state.  The conversion can stop for three reasons:

       1. 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.

       2. 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.

       3. 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 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
       that no length limit exists.

       In order to avoid the case 2 above, the programmer should make sure n
       is greater or equal to wcstombs(NULL,src,0)+1.

RETURN VALUE         top

       The wcstombs() function returns the number of bytes that make up the
       converted part of multibyte sequence, not including the terminating
       null byte.  If a wide character was encountered which could not be
       converted, (size_t) -1 is returned.

CONFORMING TO         top

       C99.

NOTES         top

       The behavior of wcstombs() depends on the LC_CTYPE category of the
       current locale.

       The function wcsrtombs(3) provides a thread safe interface to the
       same functionality.

SEE ALSO         top

       mbstowcs(3), wcsrtombs(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.51 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

GNU                              2011-10-16                      WCSTOMBS(3)

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