WCSTOMBS(3)

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

LIBRARY
libc

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>
size_t
wcstombs(char * restrict s, const wchar_t * restrict pwcs, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION
wcstombs() converts the nul-terminated wide character string pointed to by pwcs to the corresponding multibyte character string, and stores it in the array pointed to by s. This function may modify the first at most n bytes of the array pointed to by s. Each character will be converted as if wctomb(3) is continuously called, except the internal state of wctomb(3) will not be affected.

For state-dependent encoding, the wcstombs() implies the result multibyte character string pointed to by s always to begin with an initial state.

The behaviour of wcstombs() is affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale.

These are the special cases:

s == NULL
    The wcstombs() returns the number of bytes to store the whole multibyte character string corresponding to the wide character string pointed to by pwcs. In this case, n is ignored.

pwcs == NULL
    Undefined (may cause the program to crash).

RETURN VALUES
wcstombs() returns:

0 or positive
    Number of bytes stored in the array pointed to by s. There are no cases that the value returned is greater than n (unless s is a null pointer). If the return value is equal to n, the string pointed to by s will not be nul-terminated.

(size_t)-1
    pwcs points to a string containing an invalid wide character. wcstombs() also sets errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS
wcstombs() may cause an error in the following case:

[EILSEQ]
    pwcs points to a string containing an invalid wide character.

SEE ALSO
setlocale(3), wctomb(3)

STANDARDS
The wcstombs() function conforms to ansiC. The restrict qualifier is added at isoC-99.