linux man page for mbstowcs

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

NAME
       mbstowcs - convert a multibyte string to a wide-character string

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdlib.h>

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

DESCRIPTION
       If  dest  is not a NULL pointer, the mbstowcs() function converts the multibyte string src to a wide-character string starting at dest.	At
       most n wide characters are written to dest.  The conversion starts in the initial state.  The conversion can stop for three reasons:

       1. An invalid multibyte sequence has been encountered.  In this case (size_t) -1 is returned.

       2. n non-L'' wide characters have been stored at dest.  In this case the number of wide characters written to dest is returned,  but  the
	  shift state at this point is lost.

       3. The  multibyte string has been completely converted, including the terminating ''.	In this case the number of wide characters written
	  to dest, excluding the terminating L'' character, is returned.

       The programmer must ensure that there is room for at least n wide characters at dest.

       If dest is NULL, n is ignored, and the conversion proceeds as above, except that the converted wide characters are not written out to  mem-
       ory, 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 mbstowcs(NULL,src,0)+1.

RETURN VALUE
       The  mbstowcs()	function returns the number of wide characters that make up the converted part of the wide-character string, not including
       the terminating null wide character.  If an invalid multibyte sequence was encountered, (size_t) -1 is returned.

CONFORMING TO
       C99.

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

       The function mbsrtowcs(3) provides a better interface to the same functionality.

SEE ALSO
       mbsrtowcs(3)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.27 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
								    1999-07-25							       MBSTOWCS(3)