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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>codecvt</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.74.3" /><meta name="keywords" content=" ISO C++ , codecvt " /><meta name="keywords" content=" ISO C++ , library " /><link rel="home" href="../spine.html" title="The GNU C++ Library Documentation" /><link rel="up" href="facets.html" title="Chapter 15. Facets aka Categories" /><link rel="prev" href="facets.html" title="Chapter 15. Facets aka Categories" /><link rel="next" href="messages.html" title="messages" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">codecvt</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="facets.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 15. Facets aka Categories</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="messages.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="manual.localization.facet.codecvt"></a>codecvt</h2></div></div></div><p>
The standard class codecvt attempts to address conversions between
different character encoding schemes. In particular, the standard
attempts to detail conversions between the implementation-defined wide
characters (hereafter referred to as wchar_t) and the standard type
char that is so beloved in classic “<span class="quote">C</span>” (which can now be
referred to as narrow characters.) This document attempts to describe
how the GNU libstdc++ implementation deals with the conversion between
wide and narrow characters, and also presents a framework for dealing
with the huge number of other encodings that iconv can convert,
including Unicode and UTF8. Design issues and requirements are
addressed, and examples of correct usage for both the required
specializations for wide and narrow characters and the
implementation-provided extended functionality are given.
</p><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.req"></a>Requirements</h3></div></div></div><p>
Around page 425 of the C++ Standard, this charming heading comes into view:
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
22.2.1.5 - Template class codecvt
</p></blockquote></div><p>
The text around the codecvt definition gives some clues:
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>
-1- The class codecvt<internT,externT,stateT> is for use when
converting from one codeset to another, such as from wide characters
to multibyte characters, between wide character encodings such as
Unicode and EUC.
</em></span>
</p></blockquote></div><p>
Hmm. So, in some unspecified way, Unicode encodings and
translations between other character sets should be handled by this
class.
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>
-2- The stateT argument selects the pair of codesets being mapped between.
</em></span>
</p></blockquote></div><p>
Ah ha! Another clue...
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>
-3- The instantiations required in the Table ??
(lib.locale.category), namely codecvt<wchar_t,char,mbstate_t> and
codecvt<char,char,mbstate_t>, convert the implementation-defined
native character set. codecvt<char,char,mbstate_t> implements a
degenerate conversion; it does not convert at
all. codecvt<wchar_t,char,mbstate_t> converts between the native
character sets for tiny and wide characters. Instantiations on
mbstate_t perform conversion between encodings known to the library
implementor. Other encodings can be converted by specializing on a
user-defined stateT type. The stateT object can contain any state that
is useful to communicate to or from the specialized do_convert member.
</em></span>
</p></blockquote></div><p>
At this point, a couple points become clear:
</p><p>
One: The standard clearly implies that attempts to add non-required
(yet useful and widely used) conversions need to do so through the
third template parameter, stateT.</p><p>
Two: The required conversions, by specifying mbstate_t as the third
template parameter, imply an implementation strategy that is mostly
(or wholly) based on the underlying C library, and the functions
mcsrtombs and wcsrtombs in particular.</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.design"></a>Design</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="codecvt.design.wchar_t_size"></a><span class="type">wchar_t</span> Size</h4></div></div></div><p>
The simple implementation detail of wchar_t's size seems to
repeatedly confound people. Many systems use a two byte,
unsigned integral type to represent wide characters, and use an
internal encoding of Unicode or UCS2. (See AIX, Microsoft NT,
Java, others.) Other systems, use a four byte, unsigned integral
type to represent wide characters, and use an internal encoding
of UCS4. (GNU/Linux systems using glibc, in particular.) The C
programming language (and thus C++) does not specify a specific
size for the type wchar_t.
</p><p>
Thus, portable C++ code cannot assume a byte size (or endianness) either.
</p></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="codecvt.design.unicode"></a>Support for Unicode</h4></div></div></div><p>
Probably the most frequently asked question about code conversion
is: "So dudes, what's the deal with Unicode strings?"
The dude part is optional, but apparently the usefulness of
Unicode strings is pretty widely appreciated. Sadly, this specific
encoding (And other useful encodings like UTF8, UCS4, ISO 8859-10,
etc etc etc) are not mentioned in the C++ standard.
</p><p>
A couple of comments:
</p><p>
The thought that all one needs to convert between two arbitrary
codesets is two types and some kind of state argument is
unfortunate. In particular, encodings may be stateless. The naming
of the third parameter as stateT is unfortunate, as what is really
needed is some kind of generalized type that accounts for the
issues that abstract encodings will need. The minimum information
that is required includes:
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p>
Identifiers for each of the codesets involved in the
conversion. For example, using the iconv family of functions
from the Single Unix Specification (what used to be called
X/Open) hosted on the GNU/Linux operating system allows
bi-directional mapping between far more than the following
tantalizing possibilities:
</p><p>
(An edited list taken from <code class="code">`iconv --list`</code> on a
Red Hat 6.2/Intel system:
</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><pre class="programlisting">
8859_1, 8859_9, 10646-1:1993, 10646-1:1993/UCS4, ARABIC, ARABIC7,
ASCII, EUC-CN, EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-TW, GREEK-CCIcode, GREEK, GREEK7-OLD,
GREEK7, GREEK8, HEBREW, ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2, ISO-8859-3,
ISO-8859-4, ISO-8859-5, ISO-8859-6, ISO-8859-7, ISO-8859-8,
ISO-8859-9, ISO-8859-10, ISO-8859-11, ISO-8859-13, ISO-8859-14,
ISO-8859-15, ISO-10646, ISO-10646/UCS2, ISO-10646/UCS4,
ISO-10646/UTF-8, ISO-10646/UTF8, SHIFT-JIS, SHIFT_JIS, UCS-2, UCS-4,
UCS2, UCS4, UNICODE, UNICODEBIG, UNICODELIcodeLE, US-ASCII, US, UTF-8,
UTF-16, UTF8, UTF16).
</pre></blockquote></div><p>
For iconv-based implementations, string literals for each of the
encodings (i.e. "UCS-2" and "UTF-8") are necessary,
although for other,
non-iconv implementations a table of enumerated values or some other
mechanism may be required.
</p></li><li><p>
Maximum length of the identifying string literal.
</p></li><li><p>
Some encodings require explicit endian-ness. As such, some kind
of endian marker or other byte-order marker will be necessary. See
"Footnotes for C/C++ developers" in Haible for more information on
UCS-2/Unicode endian issues. (Summary: big endian seems most likely,
however implementations, most notably Microsoft, vary.)
</p></li><li><p>
Types representing the conversion state, for conversions involving
the machinery in the "C" library, or the conversion descriptor, for
conversions using iconv (such as the type iconv_t.) Note that the
conversion descriptor encodes more information than a simple encoding
state type.
</p></li><li><p>
Conversion descriptors for both directions of encoding. (i.e., both
UCS-2 to UTF-8 and UTF-8 to UCS-2.)
</p></li><li><p>
Something to indicate if the conversion requested if valid.
</p></li><li><p>
Something to represent if the conversion descriptors are valid.
</p></li><li><p>
Some way to enforce strict type checking on the internal and
external types. As part of this, the size of the internal and
external types will need to be known.
</p></li></ul></div></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="codecvt.design.issues"></a>Other Issues</h4></div></div></div><p>
In addition, multi-threaded and multi-locale environments also impact
the design and requirements for code conversions. In particular, they
affect the required specialization codecvt<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t>
when implemented using standard "C" functions.
</p><p>
Three problems arise, one big, one of medium importance, and one small.
</p><p>
First, the small: mcsrtombs and wcsrtombs may not be multithread-safe
on all systems required by the GNU tools. For GNU/Linux and glibc,
this is not an issue.
</p><p>
Of medium concern, in the grand scope of things, is that the functions
used to implement this specialization work on null-terminated
strings. Buffers, especially file buffers, may not be null-terminated,
thus giving conversions that end prematurely or are otherwise
incorrect. Yikes!
</p><p>
The last, and fundamental problem, is the assumption of a global
locale for all the "C" functions referenced above. For something like
C++ iostreams (where codecvt is explicitly used) the notion of
multiple locales is fundamental. In practice, most users may not run
into this limitation. However, as a quality of implementation issue,
the GNU C++ library would like to offer a solution that allows
multiple locales and or simultaneous usage with computationally
correct results. In short, libstdc++ is trying to offer, as an
option, a high-quality implementation, damn the additional complexity!
</p><p>
For the required specialization codecvt<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t> ,
conversions are made between the internal character set (always UCS4
on GNU/Linux) and whatever the currently selected locale for the
LC_CTYPE category implements.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.impl"></a>Implementation</h3></div></div></div><p>
The two required specializations are implemented as follows:
</p><p>
<code class="code">
codecvt<char, char, mbstate_t>
</code>
</p><p>
This is a degenerate (i.e., does nothing) specialization. Implementing
this was a piece of cake.
</p><p>
<code class="code">
codecvt<char, wchar_t, mbstate_t>
</code>
</p><p>
This specialization, by specifying all the template parameters, pretty
much ties the hands of implementors. As such, the implementation is
straightforward, involving mcsrtombs for the conversions between char
to wchar_t and wcsrtombs for conversions between wchar_t and char.
</p><p>
Neither of these two required specializations deals with Unicode
characters. As such, libstdc++ implements a partial specialization
of the codecvt class with and iconv wrapper class, encoding_state as the
third template parameter.
</p><p>
This implementation should be standards conformant. First of all, the
standard explicitly points out that instantiations on the third
template parameter, stateT, are the proper way to implement
non-required conversions. Second of all, the standard says (in Chapter
17) that partial specializations of required classes are a-ok. Third
of all, the requirements for the stateT type elsewhere in the standard
(see 21.1.2 traits typedefs) only indicate that this type be copy
constructible.
</p><p>
As such, the type encoding_state is defined as a non-templatized, POD
type to be used as the third type of a codecvt instantiation. This
type is just a wrapper class for iconv, and provides an easy interface
to iconv functionality.
</p><p>
There are two constructors for encoding_state:
</p><p>
<code class="code">
encoding_state() : __in_desc(0), __out_desc(0)
</code>
</p><p>
This default constructor sets the internal encoding to some default
(currently UCS4) and the external encoding to whatever is returned by
nl_langinfo(CODESET).
</p><p>
<code class="code">
encoding_state(const char* __int, const char* __ext)
</code>
</p><p>
This constructor takes as parameters string literals that indicate the
desired internal and external encoding. There are no defaults for
either argument.
</p><p>
One of the issues with iconv is that the string literals identifying
conversions are not standardized. Because of this, the thought of
mandating and or enforcing some set of pre-determined valid
identifiers seems iffy: thus, a more practical (and non-migraine
inducing) strategy was implemented: end-users can specify any string
(subject to a pre-determined length qualifier, currently 32 bytes) for
encodings. It is up to the user to make sure that these strings are
valid on the target system.
</p><p>
<code class="code">
void
_M_init()
</code>
</p><p>
Strangely enough, this member function attempts to open conversion
descriptors for a given encoding_state object. If the conversion
descriptors are not valid, the conversion descriptors returned will
not be valid and the resulting calls to the codecvt conversion
functions will return error.
</p><p>
<code class="code">
bool
_M_good()
</code>
</p><p>
Provides a way to see if the given encoding_state object has been
properly initialized. If the string literals describing the desired
internal and external encoding are not valid, initialization will
fail, and this will return false. If the internal and external
encodings are valid, but iconv_open could not allocate conversion
descriptors, this will also return false. Otherwise, the object is
ready to convert and will return true.
</p><p>
<code class="code">
encoding_state(const encoding_state&)
</code>
</p><p>
As iconv allocates memory and sets up conversion descriptors, the copy
constructor can only copy the member data pertaining to the internal
and external code conversions, and not the conversion descriptors
themselves.
</p><p>
Definitions for all the required codecvt member functions are provided
for this specialization, and usage of codecvt<internal character type,
external character type, encoding_state> is consistent with other
codecvt usage.
</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.use"></a>Use</h3></div></div></div><p>A conversions involving string literal.</p><pre class="programlisting">
typedef codecvt_base::result result;
typedef unsigned short unicode_t;
typedef unicode_t int_type;
typedef char ext_type;
typedef encoding_state state_type;
typedef codecvt<int_type, ext_type, state_type> unicode_codecvt;
const ext_type* e_lit = "black pearl jasmine tea";
int size = strlen(e_lit);
int_type i_lit_base[24] =
{ 25088, 27648, 24832, 25344, 27392, 8192, 28672, 25856, 24832, 29184,
27648, 8192, 27136, 24832, 29440, 27904, 26880, 28160, 25856, 8192, 29696,
25856, 24832, 2560
};
const int_type* i_lit = i_lit_base;
const ext_type* efrom_next;
const int_type* ifrom_next;
ext_type* e_arr = new ext_type[size + 1];
ext_type* eto_next;
int_type* i_arr = new int_type[size + 1];
int_type* ito_next;
// construct a locale object with the specialized facet.
locale loc(locale::classic(), new unicode_codecvt);
// sanity check the constructed locale has the specialized facet.
VERIFY( has_facet<unicode_codecvt>(loc) );
const unicode_codecvt& cvt = use_facet<unicode_codecvt>(loc);
// convert between const char* and unicode strings
unicode_codecvt::state_type state01("UNICODE", "ISO_8859-1");
initialize_state(state01);
result r1 = cvt.in(state01, e_lit, e_lit + size, efrom_next,
i_arr, i_arr + size, ito_next);
VERIFY( r1 == codecvt_base::ok );
VERIFY( !int_traits::compare(i_arr, i_lit, size) );
VERIFY( efrom_next == e_lit + size );
VERIFY( ito_next == i_arr + size );
</pre></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.future"></a>Future</h3></div></div></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p>
a. things that are sketchy, or remain unimplemented:
do_encoding, max_length and length member functions
are only weakly implemented. I have no idea how to do
this correctly, and in a generic manner. Nathan?
</p></li><li><p>
b. conversions involving std::string
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p>
how should operators != and == work for string of
different/same encoding?
</p></li><li><p>
what is equal? A byte by byte comparison or an
encoding then byte comparison?
</p></li><li><p>
conversions between narrow, wide, and unicode strings
</p></li></ul></div></li><li><p>
c. conversions involving std::filebuf and std::ostream
</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p>
how to initialize the state object in a
standards-conformant manner?
</p></li><li><p>
how to synchronize the "C" and "C++"
conversion information?
</p></li><li><p>
wchar_t/char internal buffers and conversions between
internal/external buffers?
</p></li></ul></div></li></ul></div></div><div class="bibliography"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="facet.codecvt.biblio"></a>Bibliography</h3></div></div></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id493338"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
The GNU C Library
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Roland</span> <span class="surname">McGrath</span>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Ulrich</span> <span class="surname">Drepper</span>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 2007 FSF. </span><span class="pagenums">Chapters 6 Character Set Handling and 7 Locales and Internationalization. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id478473"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
Correspondence
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Ulrich</span> <span class="surname">Drepper</span>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 2002 . </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id478501"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
ISO/IEC 14882:1998 Programming languages - C++
</i>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 1998 ISO. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id497324"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
ISO/IEC 9899:1999 Programming languages - C
</i>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 1999 ISO. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id497342"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
System Interface Definitions, Issue 6 (IEEE Std. 1003.1-200x)
</i>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 1999
The Open Group/The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.. </span><span class="biblioid">
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.opennc.org/austin/docreg.html" target="_top">
</a>
. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id461154"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
The C++ Programming Language, Special Edition
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Bjarne</span> <span class="surname">Stroustrup</span>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 2000 Addison Wesley, Inc.. </span><span class="pagenums">Appendix D. </span><span class="publisher"><span class="publishername">
Addison Wesley
. </span></span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id409878"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales
</i>. </span><span class="subtitle">
Advanced Programmer's Guide and Reference
. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Angelika</span> <span class="surname">Langer</span>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Klaus</span> <span class="surname">Kreft</span>. </span><span class="copyright">Copyright © 2000 Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.. </span><span class="publisher"><span class="publishername">
Addison Wesley Longman
. </span></span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id390798"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
A brief description of Normative Addendum 1
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Clive</span> <span class="surname">Feather</span>. </span><span class="pagenums">Extended Character Sets. </span><span class="biblioid">
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/na1.html" target="_top">
</a>
. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id389025"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
The Unicode HOWTO
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Bruno</span> <span class="surname">Haible</span>. </span><span class="biblioid">
<a class="ulink" href="ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/utf8/Unicode-HOWTO.html" target="_top">
</a>
. </span></p></div><div class="biblioentry"><a id="id337800"></a><p><span class="title"><i>
UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux
</i>. </span><span class="author"><span class="firstname">Markus</span> <span class="surname">Khun</span>. </span><span class="biblioid">
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html" target="_top">
</a>
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