![\"\"](\"http:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/wide-characters.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
String input is a weird thing when it comes to wide characters, mostly because how the heck do you type wide characters in a terminal window beyond copy-and-paste? The fgetwc()<\/em> and getwc()<\/em> functions both read one wint_t<\/em> character (wide-character int<\/em> type) from a named file stream. The getwchar()<\/em> function (actually a macro) reads wide characters from standard input. This is the function I prefer.<\/p>\n The wint_t<\/em> wide-character integer type is larger (wider) than the wchar_t<\/em> “character” type. The primary reason is to accommodate the end-of-file character, The following code uses the getwchar()<\/em> function to read wide characters one-at-a-time from standard input. The getwstring()<\/em> function reads up to The getwstring()<\/em> function uses the getwchar()<\/em> macro at Line 12 to read wide-characters from standard input. The characters are read until the newline is input or the buffer is full. Then the string is capped at Line 19.<\/p>\n For the sample run, I copied and pasted text from a web page:<\/p>\n On the Mac terminal, you can press Control+Command+Space to see the Emoji and Symbols palette, which you can use to pluck out one character at a time, as shown in Figure 1.<\/p>\n Figure 1. The weirdo character palette in the OS X Terminal program.<\/p><\/div>\n Instead of writing your own getwstring()<\/em> function to read a wide-character string, you can use the fgetws()<\/em> function. This function is the wide-character equivalent to my old pal fgets()<\/em>. Here’s the updated code:<\/p>\n As with fgets()<\/em>, the arguments for fgetws()<\/em> are a buffer, input size, and the file handle. For standard input, stdin<\/em> is used, as shown in the code.<\/p>\n The code’s output is almost the same:<\/p>\n The fgetws()<\/em> function, like its fgets()<\/em> twin, reads and retains the newline character. You can view my quickie solution for this effect here<\/a>, if you want to eliminate the newline. I’ll present another solution in a future Lesson.<\/p>\n One more note: The terminal window assumes that every character displayed has the same width. Historically, terminals play with only ASCII text. In a GUI, the terminal assumes a monospaced font. A few Unicode characters, especially emojis, are wider than a single character position in the terminal window. The result is overlap, which you can kind of see in Figure 1.<\/p>\n The wcwidth()<\/em> function returns the number of column positions for a wide character, though it’s not particularly useful. For example, the pizza slice shown in Figure 1 is more than 1 column wide, though the wcwidth()<\/em> function returns a character width value of 1, which isn’t correct. My advice is to be cautious when showing such characters. If you plan on using a specific character, then you can eyeball the width and plan accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wide character string input is almost barely possible. Continue reading
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\nFor single character input, the wchar.h<\/code> header defines three functions: fgetwc()<\/em>, getwc()<\/em>, and getwchar()<\/em>.<\/p>\nWEOF<\/code>, which is defined outside the bounds of a wchar_t<\/em> variable. You can use plain old wchar_t<\/em> variables with the functions, but when you’re hunting for the end-of-file marker with fgetwc()<\/em> or getwc()<\/em>, use wint_t<\/em> instead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\ncount<\/code> characters or stops at the newline ('\\n'<\/code>), storing the result in the wchar_t<\/em> string input<\/code>:<\/p>\n\r\n#include <locale.h>\r\n#include <wchar.h>\r\n\r\nvoid getwstring(wchar_t *ws,int count)\r\n{\r\n int x = 0;\r\n wchar_t *a,wch;\r\n\r\n a = ws;\r\n while(x<count-1)\r\n {\r\n wch = getwchar();\r\n if( wch=='\\n')\r\n break;\r\n *a = wch;\r\n a++;\r\n x++;\r\n }\r\n *a = '\\0';\r\n}\r\n\r\nint main()\r\n{\r\n wchar_t input[10];\r\n\r\n setlocale(LC_CTYPE,\"UTF-8\");\r\n\r\n wprintf(L\"Type some fancy text: \");\r\n getwstring(input,10);\r\n wprintf(L\"You typed: %ls!\\n\",input);\r\n\r\n return(0);\r\n}<\/pre>\nType some fancy text: \u4f60\u597d\uff0c\u4e16\u754c\r\nYou typed: \u4f60\u597d\uff0c\u4e16\u754c!<\/code><\/pre>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/0715-figure1.png\")
\r\n#include <locale.h>\r\n#include <wchar.h>\r\n\r\nint main()\r\n{\r\n wchar_t input[10];\r\n\r\n setlocale(LC_CTYPE,\"UTF-8\");\r\n\r\n wprintf(L\"Type some fancy text: \");\r\n fgetws(input,10,stdin);\r\n wprintf(L\"You typed: %ls!\\n\",input);\r\n\r\n return(0);\r\n}<\/pre>\nType some fancy text: \u4f60\u597d\uff0c\u4e16\u754c\r\nYou typed: \u4f60\u597d\uff0c\u4e16\u754c\r\n!<\/code><\/pre>\n