C++ getwc()

The getwc() function is similar to fgetwc(). The main difference between them is getwc() can be implemented as macro.

It is defined in <cwchar> header file.

getwc() Prototype

wint_t getwc(FILE* stream);

The getwc() function takes a file stream stream as its argument and returns the next wide character from the given stream as a value of wide integer type.

getwc() Parameters

• stream: The file stream to read the wide character.

getwc() Return value

• On success, the fgetwc() function returns the wide character that is read.
• On failure it returns WEOF. If an encoding error occurred, sets the errno to EILSEQ.

Example: How getwc() function works?

#include <iostream>
#include <cwchar>
#include <cstdio>
#include <clocale>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
	wint_t c;
	FILE *fp = fopen("file.txt","w+");
	setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.UTF-8");

	wchar_t str[] = L"\u0102\u01A5\u01A5\u0139\u011B";// equivalent to ĂƥƥĹě
	fputws(str, fp);
	rewind(fp);

	if (fp)
	{
		while(!feof(fp))
		{
			c = getwc(fp);
			putwchar(c);
		}
	}
	else
		wcout << L"Error opening file" << endl;

	fclose(fp);
	return 0;
}

When you run the program, a possible output will be:

ĂƥƥĹě