std::wcstombs(3)

NAME
std::wcstombs - std::wcstombs

Synopsis
   Defined in header <cstdlib>
   std::size_t wcstombs( char* dst, const wchar_t* src, std::size_t len );
   Converts a sequence of wide characters from the array whose first element is pointed
   to by src to its narrow multibyte representation that begins in the initial shift
   state. Converted characters are stored in the successive elements of the char array
   pointed to by dst. No more than len bytes are written to the destination array.
   Each character is converted as if by a call to std::wctomb, except that the wctomb's
   conversion state is unaffected. The conversion stops if:
     * The null character was converted and stored.
     * A wchar_t was found that does not correspond to a valid character in the current
       C locale.
     * The next multibyte character to be stored would exceed len.

Notes
   In most implementations, this function updates a global static object of type
   std::mbstate_t as it processes through the string, and cannot be called
   simultaneously by two threads, std::wcsrtombs should be used in such cases.
   POSIX specifies a common extension: if dst is a null pointer, this function returns
   the number of bytes that would be written to dst, if converted. Similar behavior is
   standard for std::wcsrtombs.

Parameters
   dst - pointer to narrow character array where the multibyte character will be stored
   src - pointer to the first element of a null-terminated wide string to convert
   len - number of byte available in the array pointed to by dst

Return value
   On success, returns the number of bytes (including any shift sequences, but
   excluding the terminating '\0') written to the character array whose first element
   is pointed to by dst.
   On conversion error (if invalid wide character was encountered), returns
   static_cast<std::size_t>(-1).

Example
// Run this code
 #include <clocale>
 #include <cstdlib>
 #include <iostream>
 int main()
 {
     std::setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.utf8");
     // UTF-8 narrow multibyte encoding
     const wchar_t* wstr = L"z\u00df\u6c34\U0001d10b"; // or L"zß水𝄋"
     char mbstr[11];
     std::wcstombs(mbstr, wstr, 11);
     std::cout << "multibyte string: " << mbstr << '\n';
 }

Output:
 multibyte string: zß水𝄋

See also
   wcsrtombs converts a wide string to narrow multibyte character string, given state
             (function)
   mbstowcs converts a narrow multibyte character string to wide string
             (function)
   do_out converts a string from InternT to ExternT, such as when writing to file
   [virtual] (virtual protected member function of
             std::codecvt<InternT,ExternT,StateT>)
   C documentation for
   wcstombs