7bcd9e05bd
Update the Unicode introduction text to better reflect the reality of 2016, not 1996.
185 lines
6.8 KiB
C
185 lines
6.8 KiB
C
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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// Name: mbconvclasses.h
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// Purpose: topic overview
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// Author: wxWidgets team
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// Licence: wxWindows licence
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/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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/**
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@page overview_mbconv wxMBConv Overview
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@tableofcontents
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The wxMBConv classes in wxWidgets enable an Unicode-aware application to easily
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convert between Unicode and the variety of 8-bit encoding systems still in use.
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@see @ref group_class_conv
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@section overview_mbconv_need Background: The Need for Conversion
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As programs have become more and more globalized, and users are exchanging documents
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across country boundaries as never before, applications need to take into account
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the different letters and symbols in use around the world. It is no longer enough
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to just depend on the default byte-sized character sets that computers have
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traditionally used.
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The Unicode standard is the solution to most tasks involving processing and exchanging
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text in arbitrary languages. Unicode is able to contain the complete set of characters
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used in all languages of the world in one unified global coding system.
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Unicode text can be represented in various encodings, one of the most commonly used
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being UTF-8. UTF-8 along with UTF-7 are so-called "compatibility encodings", which
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exist to facilitate the migration from old 8-bit encodings to Unicode. Despite the
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wide adoption of Unicode, a number of legacy systems out there still depends on the
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old 8-bit encodings.
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Sending Unicode data from one Unicode-aware system to another, e.g. through a network
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connection or regular files, is typically done by encoding the data into a multibyte
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encoding; usually UTF-8.
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@section overview_mbconv_string Background: The wxString Class
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@todo rewrite this overview; it's not up2date with wxString changes
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If you have compiled wxWidgets in Unicode mode, the wxChar type will become
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identical to wchar_t rather than char, and a wxString stores wxChars. Hence,
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all wxString manipulation in your application will then operate on Unicode
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strings, and almost as easily as working with ordinary char strings (you just
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need to remember to use the wxT() macro to encapsulate any string literals).
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But often, your environment doesn't want Unicode strings. You could be sending
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data over a network, or processing a text file for some other application. You
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need a way to quickly convert your easily-handled Unicode data to and from a
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traditional 8-bit encoding. And this is what the wxMBConv classes do.
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@section overview_mbconv_classes wxMBConv Classes
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The base class for all these conversions is the wxMBConv class (which itself
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implements standard libc locale conversion). Derived classes include
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wxMBConvLibc, several different wxMBConvUTFxxx classes, and wxCSConv, which
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implement different kinds of conversions. You can also derive your own class
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for your own custom encoding and use it, should you need it. All you need to do
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is override the MB2WC and WC2MB methods.
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@section overview_mbconv_objects wxMBConv Objects
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Several of the wxWidgets-provided wxMBConv classes have predefined instances
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(wxConvLibc, wxConvFileName, wxConvUTF7, wxConvUTF8, wxConvLocal). You can use
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these predefined objects directly, or you can instantiate your own objects.
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A variable, wxConvCurrent, points to the conversion object that the user
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interface is supposed to use, in the case that the user interface is not
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Unicode-based (like with GTK+ 1.2). By default, it points to wxConvLibc or
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wxConvLocal, depending on which works best on the current platform.
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@section overview_mbconv_csconv wxCSConv
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The wxCSConv class is special because when it is instantiated, you can tell it
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which character set it should use, which makes it meaningful to keep many
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instances of them around, each with a different character set (or you can
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create a wxCSConv instance on the fly).
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The predefined wxCSConv instance, wxConvLocal, is preset to use the default
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user character set, but you should rarely need to use it directly, it is better
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to go through wxConvCurrent.
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@section overview_mbconv_converting Converting Strings
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Once you have chosen which object you want to use to convert your text, here is
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how you would use them with wxString. These examples all assume that you are
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using a Unicode build of wxWidgets, although they will still compile in a
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non-Unicode build (they just won't convert anything).
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Example 1: Constructing a wxString from input in current encoding.
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@code
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wxString str(input_data, *wxConvCurrent);
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@endcode
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Example 2: Input in UTF-8 encoding.
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@code
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wxString str(input_data, wxConvUTF8);
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@endcode
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Example 3: Input in KOI8-R. Construction of wxCSConv instance on the fly.
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@code
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wxString str(input_data, wxCSConv(wxT("koi8-r")));
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@endcode
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Example 4: Printing a wxString to stdout in UTF-8 encoding.
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@code
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puts(str.mb_str(wxConvUTF8));
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@endcode
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Example 5: Printing a wxString to stdout in custom encoding. Using
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preconstructed wxCSConv instance.
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@code
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wxCSConv cust(user_encoding);
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printf("Data: %s\n", (const char*) str.mb_str(cust));
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@endcode
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@note Since mb_str() returns a temporary wxCharBuffer to hold the result of the
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conversion, you need to explicitly cast it to const char* if you use it in a
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vararg context (like with printf).
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@section overview_mbconv_buffers Converting Buffers
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If you have specialized needs, or just don't want to use wxString, you can also
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use the conversion methods of the conversion objects directly. This can even be
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useful if you need to do conversion in a non-Unicode build of wxWidgets;
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converting a string from UTF-8 to the current encoding should be possible by
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doing this:
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@code
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wxString str(wxConvUTF8.cMB2WC(input_data), *wxConvCurrent);
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@endcode
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Here, cMB2WC of the UTF8 object returns a wxWCharBuffer containing a Unicode
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string. The wxString constructor then converts it back to an 8-bit character
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set using the passed conversion object, *wxConvCurrent. (In a Unicode build of
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wxWidgets, the constructor ignores the passed conversion object and retains the
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Unicode data.)
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This could also be done by first making a wxString of the original data:
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@code
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wxString input_str(input_data);
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wxString str(input_str.wc_str(wxConvUTF8), *wxConvCurrent);
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@endcode
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To print a wxChar buffer to a non-Unicode stdout:
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@code
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printf("Data: %s\n", (const char*) wxConvCurrent->cWX2MB(unicode_data));
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@endcode
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If you need to do more complex processing on the converted data, you may want
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to store the temporary buffer in a local variable:
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@code
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const wxWX2MBbuf tmp_buf = wxConvCurrent->cWX2MB(unicode_data);
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const char *tmp_str = (const char*) tmp_buf;
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printf("Data: %s\n", tmp_str);
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process_data(tmp_str);
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@endcode
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If a conversion had taken place in cWX2MB (i.e. in a Unicode build), the buffer
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will be deallocated as soon as tmp_buf goes out of scope. The macro wxWX2MBbuf
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reflects the correct return value of cWX2MB (either char* or wxCharBuffer),
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except for the const.
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*/
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