Multibyte code and character code conversion subroutines

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The globalized environment of multicultural support blends multibyte and wide character subroutines. The decision of when to use wide character or multibyte subroutines can be made only after careful analysis.

If a program primarily uses multibyte subroutines, it may be necessary to convert the multibyte character codes to wide character codes before certain wide character subroutines can be used. If a program uses wide character subroutines, data may need to be converted to multibyte form when invoking subroutines. Both methods have drawbacks, depending on the program in use and the availability of standard subroutines to perform the required processing. For instance, the wide character display-column-width subroutine has no corresponding standard multibyte subroutine.

If a program can process its characters in multibyte form, this method should be used instead of converting the characters to wide character form.

Attention: The conversion between multibyte and wide character code depends on the current locale setting. Do not exchange wide character codes between two processes, unless you have knowledge that each locale that might be used handles wide character codes in a consistent fashion. With the exception of locales based on the IBM-eucTW code set, AIX® locales use the Unicode character value as a wide character code.