mbstate_t(3type) - Linux manual page (original) (raw)

mbstatet(3type) mbstatet(3type)

NAME top

   mbstate_t - multi-byte-character conversion state

LIBRARY top

   Standard C library (_libc_)

SYNOPSIS top

   **#include <wchar.h>**

   **typedef** /* ... */  **mbstate_t;**

DESCRIPTION top

   Character conversion between the multibyte representation and the
   wide character representation uses conversion state, of type
   _mbstatet_.  Conversion of a string uses a finite-state machine;
   when it is interrupted after the complete conversion of a number
   of characters, it may need to save a state for processing the
   remaining characters.  Such a conversion state is needed for the
   sake of encodings such as ISO/IEC 2022 and UTF-7.

   The initial state is the state at the beginning of conversion of a
   string.  There are two kinds of state: the one used by multibyte
   to wide character conversion functions, such as [mbsrtowcs(3)](../man3/mbsrtowcs.3.html), and
   the one used by wide character to multibyte conversion functions,
   such as [wcsrtombs(3)](../man3/wcsrtombs.3.html), but they both fit in a _mbstatet_, and they
   both have the same representation for an initial state.

   For 8-bit encodings, all states are equivalent to the initial
   state.  For multibyte encodings like UTF-8, EUC-*, BIG5, or SJIS,
   the wide character to multibyte conversion functions never produce
   non-initial states, but the multibyte to wide-character conversion
   functions like [mbrtowc(3)](../man3/mbrtowc.3.html) do produce non-initial states when
   interrupted in the middle of a character.

   One possible way to create an _mbstatet_ in initial state is to set
   it to zero:

       mbstate_t state;
       memset(&state, 0, sizeof(state));

   On Linux, the following works as well, but might generate compiler
   warnings:

       mbstate_t state = { 0 };

STANDARDS top

   C11, POSIX.1-2008.

HISTORY top

   C99, POSIX.1-2001.

SEE ALSO top

   [mbrlen(3)](../man3/mbrlen.3.html), [mbrtowc(3)](../man3/mbrtowc.3.html), [mbsinit(3)](../man3/mbsinit.3.html), [mbsrtowcs(3)](../man3/mbsrtowcs.3.html), [wcrtomb(3)](../man3/wcrtomb.3.html),
   [wcsrtombs(3)](../man3/wcsrtombs.3.html)

COLOPHON top

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Linux man-pages 6.10 2024-05-03 mbstatet(3type)

Pages that refer to this page:mbsinit(3)