Please describe (in simple words) the diffrence between char and widechar and char and wchar and wchar_t....

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Hi,
Please describe (in simple words) the difference between char and widechar and char and wchar and wchar_t.
I explored the internet but cannot find satisfactory answer.

Posted 2-Oct-11 21:24pm

ahsanriaz1K

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2 solutions

Solution 2

This might be of interest:
Character encoding[^]

Best regards
Espen Harlinn

Posted 3-Oct-11 11:58am

Espen Harlinn

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 3-Oct-11 20:33pm

Good link, my 5.
--SA

Espen Harlinn 4-Oct-11 4:16am

Thank you, Sergey!

Simon Bang Terkildsen 4-Oct-11 2:26am

+5

Espen Harlinn 4-Oct-11 4:16am

Thank you, Simon!

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Simon Bang Terkildsen · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02T21:34:00

Solution 1

char - 1 byte
wchar_t - 2 bytes
wchar not a C++ type

Posted 2-Oct-11 21:34pm

Simon Bang Terkildsen

Comments

ahsanriaz1K 3-Oct-11 3:38am

and what is the difference in functionality?

Simon Bang Terkildsen 3-Oct-11 3:44am

? char can contain one byte of data while wchar_t can contain two. Thus char is used for ascii characters while wchar_t is used for unicode characters.

Espen Harlinn 3-Oct-11 17:57pm

Good answer :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 3-Oct-11 20:41pm

My 4 this time. As you mentioned Unicode, it would be good to note that Unicode is no way a 16-bit code. It would needs some paragraph to explain what is it. In C++ standard (or just in Stroustrup book) there is a special note that 16-bit character does not impose any assumption about the character set used. This is more or less wise. Let's take Unicode presented using 16-bit characters. Usually (Windows, .NET. Mono, Linux and more) it means that the used encoding is either UTF16LE or UTF16BE. These encodings require that a Unicode character outside BMP (see http://www.Unicode.org) are represented with surrogate pairs. So, some characters are represented by one 16-bit word, but some are with two words, which needs special care when characters are counted, copies, etc. At the same time, "normal" string manipulations may remain completely agnostic to this complication.
--SA

Simon Bang Terkildsen 4-Oct-11 2:20am

Thank you for the vote. Very true I should probably have talked about that, though you mention surrogate pairs which I actually have no idea what is, so this has been put on my todo list, as I clearly lack some information on this.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 3-Oct-11 20:48pm

I voted 4 this time. If you mentioned Unicode, you should have noted that Unicode is not 16-bit code. Explanation of what it is might need a whole paragraphs. Also, C++ standard (or just Stroustrup's book, I don't remember exactly), explicitly notes that no assumption is made about code set is used. This is important, because even when Unicode is used, in memory it is usually UTF16LE or UTF16BE (Windows, .NET, Mono, Linux and more), but not all characters are of one 16-bit words -- beyond BMP (see http://www.Unicode.org) surrogate pairs are used.
--SA
--SA