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MBSRTOWCS(3)                            BSD Library Functions Manual                            MBSRTOWCS(3)

NAME
     mbsnrtowcs, mbsnrtowcs_l, mbsrtowcs, mbsrtowcs_l -- convert a character string to a wide-character
     string (restartable)

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <wchar.h>

     size_t
     mbsnrtowcs(wchar_t *restrict dst, const char **restrict src, size_t nms, size_t len,
         mbstate_t *restrict ps);

     size_t
     mbsrtowcs(wchar_t *restrict dst, const char **restrict src, size_t len, mbstate_t *restrict ps);

     #include <wchar.h>
     #include <xlocale.h>

     size_t
     mbsrtowcs_l(wchar_t *restrict dst, const char **restrict src, size_t len, mbstate_t *restrict ps,
         locale_t loc);

     size_t
     mbsnrtowcs_l(wchar_t *restrict dst, const char **restrict src, size_t nms, size_t len,
         mbstate_t *restrict ps, locale_t loc);

DESCRIPTION
     The mbsrtowcs() function converts a sequence of multibyte characters, pointed to indirectly by src,
     into a sequence of corresponding wide characters. It stores at most len of them in the wchar_t array
     pointed to by dst, until it encounters a terminating null character ('\0').

     If dst is NULL, no characters are stored.

     If dst is not NULL, the pointer pointed to by src is updated to point to the character after the one
     that conversion stopped at.  If conversion stops because a null character is encountered, *src is set
     to NULL.

     The mbstate_t argument, ps, is used to keep track of the shift state.  If it is NULL, mbsrtowcs() uses
     an internal, static mbstate_t object, which is initialized to the initial conversion state at program
     startup.

     The mbsnrtowcs() function behaves identically to mbsrtowcs(), except that conversion stops after read-ing reading
     ing at most nms bytes from the buffer pointed to by src.

     While the mbsrtowcs() and mbsnrtowcs() functions use the current locale, the mbsrtowcs_l() and
     mbsnrtowcs_l() functions may be passed locales directly. See xlocale(3) for more information.

RETURN VALUES
     The mbsrtowcs() and mbsnrtowcs() functions return the number of wide characters stored in the array
     pointed to by dst if successful, otherwise it returns (size_t)-1.

ERRORS
     The mbsrtowcs() and mbsnrtowcs() functions will fail if:

     [EILSEQ]           An invalid multibyte character sequence was encountered.

     [EINVAL]           The conversion state is invalid.

SEE ALSO
     mbrtowc(3), mbstowcs(3), multibyte(3), wcsrtombs(3), xlocale(3)

STANDARDS
     The mbsrtowcs() function conforms to ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (``ISO C99'').

     The mbsnrtowcs() function is an extension to the standard.

BSD                                             July 21, 2004                                            BSD