Multibyte String Functions

Internationalization (I18n) Issue:

These functions operate upon strings composed with multibyte characters of type char *. These functions often replace single character string operations functions as a result of internationalization reengineering. To operate correctly, the underlying wchar_t * type must be properly implemented.

I18n Solution:

Use the appropriate equivalent multibyte string function when reengineering an application for internationalization.

I18n Discussion:

A multibyte character is a sequence of one or more bytes. An example of a multibyte character set is given at UTF-8. Such character sets will alternate between single and multiple bytes to encode each character. These multibyte functions work with the character set of the platform. This category of multibyte functions will appropriately handle the switching between singlebyte and multibyte characters within a given character stream. When performing initial internationalization engineering, wide character manipulation functions are preferable to these multibyte functions.