Convert char* to wchar* in C

c unicode char wchar

54,129

Solution 1

Try swprintf with the %hs flag.

Example:

wchar_t  ws[100];
swprintf(ws, 100, L"%hs", "ansi string");

Solution 2

setlocale() followed by mbstowcs().

Solution 3

what you're looking for is

mbstowcs

works just like the copy function from char* to char*

but in this case you're saving into a wchar_t*

54,129

Author by

Crupuk

Updated on April 08, 2020

Comments

Crupuk about 4 years

I would like to convert a char* string to a wchar* string in C.

I have found many answers, but most of them are for C++. Could you help me?

Thanks.
Benoit over 13 years

This is OK as long as the input is an ANSI string.
user541686 over 13 years

@Benoit: Yeah, there's obviously more to string conversion than calling just a single function. But I didn't give any details since I think this is all the OP's looking for...
Crupuk over 13 years

The imput come from LdapDirectory, so i guess it's an UTF8 ?
Crupuk over 13 years

i will try this evening , for now i don't have access to a shell.Thanks
caf over 13 years

@Benoit: There's no such thing as an "ANSI string". This will work if the original string is in the multibyte format corresponding to the currently set locale.
Crupuk over 13 years

I already have found this function, but i can't use it correctly, i just want to encode a string to unicode to send in a mail subject header. Thanks to you
caf over 13 years

@Crupuk: What format is the source string in? If it's just ASCII, and you want to use it in a UTF-8 mail header, then no transformation is needed.
Antonio almost 11 years

@NickDandoulakis I think this answer could be very useful, however I found out that swprintf could have 2 possible interfaces, could you please take a look at this question? stackoverflow.com/q/17716763/2436175
Nick Dandoulakis almost 11 years

@Antonio the interface that requires the buffer length is the portable one.
Antonio almost 11 years

@NickDandoulakis It won't compile on Mingw 4.5.2 for example, so unfortunately is not general!
Octopus almost 11 years

this is a good solution when cross compiling to mingw on a linux platform
rookie1024 almost 9 years

Note that this appears to work with any of the printf functions, fortunately.
Bemipefe about 4 years

Can you explain why %hs is the correct flag ? I tried %ls but it doesn't work (at least on windows). According to this article %hs is used for "narrow" string while %ls is used for "wide" string. I'm using wchar_t so I thought that the correct choise was %ls for "wide" string but I was wrong.
Nick Dandoulakis about 4 years

@Bemipefe, the %hs specifies the type of the argument, e.g. "ansi string" which is a narrow string.
Bemipefe about 4 years

@NickDandoulakis Thanks. I feel a little bit stupid. You are right. The whole printed string will be a wide string but you have to specify the original (input) format.
Nick Dandoulakis about 4 years

@Bemipefe, no problem. No such thing as a stupid question