redhat man page for wcstombs

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

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

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdlib.h>

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

DESCRIPTION
       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 L''. In this case the conversion ends in the ini-
       tial state.  The number of bytes written to dest, excluding the terminating '' byte, 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
       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
       ISO/ANSI C, UNIX98

SEE ALSO
       wcsrtombs(3)

NOTES
       The behaviour of wcstombs depends on the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale.

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

GNU
								    1999-07-25							       WCSTOMBS(3)