what is wchar_t

[sarathy]

Hi ,
Can anyone please explain what are wide characters (wchar_t).
Why is it used when there is char datatype ?

Regards,
Sarathy

 

[Clever Monkey]

Hi ,
Can anyone please explain what are wide characters (wchar_t).
Why is it used when there is char datatype ?

It's the 'w'ide 'char'acter 't'ype. A constant example would be L'X'.

See wchar.h, added with Amendment 1.

 

[Old Wolf]

Hi ,
Can anyone please explain what are wide characters (wchar_t).

Characters with more than 256 possible values

Why is it used when there is char datatype ?

char is limited to 256 possible values, on most computers.
In order to write text in other languages, you need many
more possible characters.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Characters with more than 256 possible values

Well, char can have more than 256 possible values if CHAR_BIT > 8.

For that matter, I don't think there's any guarantee that wchar_t
actually can represent more than 256 values, though it's fairly
pointless if it can't.

 

[Guest]

Well, char can have more than 256 possible values if CHAR_BIT > 8.

For that matter, I don't think there's any guarantee that wchar_t
actually can represent more than 256 values, though it's fairly
pointless if it can't.

There's not any guarantee that wchar_t can represent more than 255
values, if it is signed. I wouldn't call it pointless though: code
shouldn't have to check whether wchar_t is defined, and use char if it
isn't. You can simply assume wchar_t exists, and if the implementation
does not support multibyte characters, the code will still work as well
as possible. Pretty much every important string function has both a
narrow and a wide string version, and every one would have to be
wrapped in a #if USE_WCHAR_T block otherwise.