multibyte(3) [osx man page]

MULTIBYTE(3)						   BSD Library Functions Manual 					      MULTIBYTE(3)

NAME

     multibyte -- multibyte and wide character manipulation functions

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <limits.h>
     #include <stdlib.h>
     #include <wchar.h>

DESCRIPTION

     The basic elements of some written natural languages, such as Chinese, cannot be represented uniquely with single C chars.  The C standard
     supports two different ways of dealing with extended natural language encodings: wide characters and multibyte characters.  Wide characters
     are an internal representation which allows each basic element to map to a single object of type wchar_t.	Multibyte characters are used for
     input and output and code each basic element as a sequence of C chars.  Individual basic elements may map into one or more (up to MB_LEN_MAX)
     bytes in a multibyte character.

     The current locale (setlocale(3)) governs the interpretation of wide and multibyte characters.  The locale category LC_CTYPE specifically
     controls this interpretation.  The wchar_t type is wide enough to hold the largest value in the wide character representations for all
     locales.

     Multibyte strings may contain 'shift' indicators to switch to and from particular modes within the given representation.  If explicit bytes
     are used to signal shifting, these are not recognized as separate characters but are lumped with a neighboring character.	There is always a
     distinguished 'initial' shift state.  Some functions (e.g., mblen(3), mbtowc(3) and wctomb(3)) maintain static shift state internally,
     whereas others store it in an mbstate_t object passed by the caller.  Shift states are undefined after a call to setlocale(3) with the
     LC_CTYPE or LC_ALL categories.

     For convenience in processing, the wide character with value 0 (the null wide character) is recognized as the wide character string termina-
     tor, and the character with value 0 (the null byte) is recognized as the multibyte character string terminator.  Null bytes are not permitted
     within multibyte characters.

     The C library provides the following functions for dealing with multibyte characters:

     Function	    Description
     mblen(3)	    get number of bytes in a character
     mbrlen(3)	    get number of bytes in a character (restartable)
     mbrtowc(3)     convert a character to a wide-character code (restartable)
     mbsrtowcs(3)   convert a character string to a wide-character string (restartable)
     mbstowcs(3)    convert a character string to a wide-character string
     mbtowc(3)	    convert a character to a wide-character code
     wcrtomb(3)     convert a wide-character code to a character (restartable)
     wcstombs(3)    convert a wide-character string to a character string
     wcsrtombs(3)   convert a wide-character string to a character string (restartable)
     wctomb(3)	    convert a wide-character code to a character

SEE ALSO

     mklocale(1), setlocale(3), stdio(3), big5(5), euc(5), gb18030(5), gb2312(5), gbk(5), mskanji(5), utf8(5)

STANDARDS

     These functions conform to ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (``ISO C99'').

BSD
								   April 8, 2004							       BSD

Check Out this Related Man Page

mbsinit(3)						     Library Functions Manual							mbsinit(3)

NAME

       mbsinit - Determines whether a multibyte-character string is in the initial conversion state

LIBRARY

       Standard C Library (libc)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <wchar.h>

       int mbsinit(
	       const mbstate_t *ps);

STANDARDS

       Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:

       mbsinit():  XSH5.0

       Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

PARAMETERS

       Points  to  an  mbstate_t object, which describes the conversion state of the current character in the string being converted.  The initial
       conversion state for conversion in either direction (multibyte to wide-character format or the reverse) corresponds to the beginning of the
       character's multibyte encoding sequence in the initial shift state as defined by the LC_TYPE category of the current locale.

DESCRIPTION

       The mbsinit() function determines whether the sequence of characters being converted is in the initial conversion state; that is, the func-
       tion determines whether the multibyte encoding for the current character in this sequence is in the initial shift state as defined  by  the
       LC_TYPE	category of the current locale.  The application can use a zero return, which indicates that the character sequence is not in ini-
       tial conversion state, to initiate a conversion operation.

       Use this function along with the restartable conversion functions (mbrlen, mbrtowc,  wcrtomb,  mbsrtowcs,  wcsrtombs)  to  convert  between
       multibyte-character  and  wide-character format.  Only restartable conversion functions use an mbstate_t parameter, such as ps.	Therefore,
       results are undefined when restartable and nonrestartable conversion functions operate on the same arrays of characters during a conversion
       operation. Results are also undefined when ps is first altered by any of the restartable conversion functions and then used by another call
       in any of the following ways: With a different sequence of characters In the reverse conversion direction Under a different  LC_CTYPE  set-
       ting than on earlier function calls

RESTRICTIONS

       [Tru64  UNIX]  The  mbsinit() function and restartable versions of conversion routines are functional only when used with locales that sup-
       port shift state encoding. Currently, the operating system does not provide any locales that use shift state  encoding  and  the  mbsinit()
       function returns a nonzero value only to indicate that *ps is a null pointer.

RETURN VALUES

       The  mbsinit()  function returns a nonzero value if *ps is a null pointer or ps describes an initial conversion state; otherwise, the func-
       tion returns zero.

RELATED INFORMATION

       Functions: mblen(3), mbstowcs(3), mbtowc(3), wcstombs(3), wctomb(3)

       Files: locale(4) delim off

																	mbsinit(3)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

multibyte(3) [osx man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page