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# std::codecvt

From cppreference.com
< cpp‎ | locale

Defined in header `<locale>` |  |
template< class InternT, class ExternT, class State > class codecvt; |  |

Class std::codecvt encapsulates conversion of character strings, including wide and multibyte, from one encoding to another. All file I/O operations performed through std::basic_fstream<CharT> use the std::codecvt<CharT, char, std::mbstate_t> facet of the locale imbued in the stream.

Inheritance diagram

Four standalone (locale-independent) specializations are provided by the standard library:

Defined in header `<locale>`
std::codecvt<char, char, std::mbstate_t> | identity conversion
std::codecvt<char16_t, char, std::mbstate_t> | conversion between UTF-16 and UTF-8 (since C++11)
std::codecvt<char32_t, char, std::mbstate_t> | conversion between UTF-32 and UTF-8 (since C++11)
std::codecvt<wchar_t, char, std::mbstate_t> | conversion between the system's native wide and multibyte encodings

In addition, every locale object constructed in a C++ program implements its own (locale-specific) versions of these four specializations.

### [edit] Member types

Member type | Definition
`intern_type` | `InternT`
`extern_type` | `ExternT`
`state_type` | `State`

### [edit] Member functions

(constructor) | constructs a new codecvt facet (public member function)
(destructor) | destructs a codecvt facet (protected member function)
out | invokes `do_out` (public member function) [edit]
in | invokes `do_in` (public member function) [edit]
unshift | invokes `do_unshift` (public member function) [edit]
encoding | invokes `do_encoding` (public member function) [edit]
always_noconv | invokes `do_always_noconv` (public member function) [edit]
length | invokes `do_length` (public member function) [edit]
max_length | invokes `do_max_length` (public member function) [edit]

### [edit] Member objects

Member name | Type
`id` (static) | std::locale::id

### [edit] Protected member functions

do_out [virtual] | converts a string from internT to externT, such as when writing to file (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_in [virtual] | converts a string from externT to internT, such as when reading from file (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_unshift [virtual] | generates the termination character sequence of externT characters for incomplete conversion (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_encoding [virtual] | returns the number of externT characters necessary to produce one internT character, if constant (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_always_noconv [virtual] | tests if the facet encodes an identity conversion for all valid argument values (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_length [virtual] | calculates the length of the externT string that would be consumed by conversion into given internT buffer (virtual protected member function) [edit]
do_max_length [virtual] | returns the maximum number of externT characters that could be converted into a single internT character (virtual protected member function) [edit]

## Inherited from std::codecvt_base

Member type | Definition
enum result { ok, partial, error, noconv }; | Unscoped enumeration type

Enumeration constant | Definition
`ok` | conversion was completed with no error
`partial` | not all source characters were converted
`error` | encountered an invalid character
`noconv` | no conversion required, input and output types are the same

### [edit] Example

The following examples reads a UTF-8 file using a locale which implements UTF-8 conversion in codecvt<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t> and converts a UTF-8 string to UTF-16 using one of the standard specializations of std::codecvt

Run this code

    #include <iostream>
    #include <fstream>
    #include <string>
    #include <locale>
    #include <iomanip>
    #include <string>
    #include <codecvt>

    // utility wrapper to adapt locale-bound facets for wstring/wbuffer convert
    template<class Facet>
    struct deletable_facet : Facet
    {
        template<class ...Args>
        deletable_facet(Args&& ...args) : Facet(std::forward<Args>(args)...) {}
        ~deletable_facet() {}
    };

    int main()
    {
        // UTF-8 narrow multibyte encoding
        std::string data = u8"z\u00df\u6c34\U0001f34c";
                           // or u8"zß水🍌"
                           // or "\x7a\xc3\x9f\xe6\xb0\xb4\xf0\x9f\x8d\x8c";

        std::ofstream("text.txt") << data;

        // using system-supplied locale's codecvt facet
        std::wifstream fin("text.txt");
        // reading from wifstream willl use codecvt<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t>
        // this locale's codecvt converts UTF-8 to UCS4 (on systems such as Linux)
        fin.imbue(std::locale("en_US.UTF-8"));
        std::cout << "The UTF-8 file contains the following UCS4 code points: \n";
        for (wchar_t c; fin >> c; )
            std::cout << "U+" << std::hex << std::setw(4) << std::setfill('0') << c << '\n';

        // using standard (locale-independent) codecvt facet
        std::wstring_convert<
            deletable_facet<std::codecvt<char16_t, char, std::mbstate_t>>, char16_t> conv16;
        std::u16string str16 = conv16.from_bytes(data);

        std::cout << "The UTF-8 file contains the following UTF-16 code points: \n";
        for (char16_t c : str16)
            std::cout << "U+" << std::hex << std::setw(4) << std::setfill('0') << c << '\n';
    }

Output:

    The UTF-8 file contains the following UCS4 code points:
    U+007a
    U+00df
    U+6c34
    U+1f34c
    The UTF-8 file contains the following UTF-16 code points:
    U+007a
    U+00df
    U+6c34
    U+d83c
    U+df4c

### [edit] See also

Character conversions | narrow multibyte (char) | UTF-8 (char) | UTF-16 (char16_t)
--- | --- | --- | ---
UTF-16 | `mbrtoc16` / `c16rtomb` | `codecvt`<char16_t, char, mbstate_t> `codecvt_utf8_utf16`<char16_t> `codecvt_utf8_utf16`<char32_t> `codecvt_utf8_utf16`<wchar_t> | N/A
UCS2 | No | `codecvt_utf8`<char16_t> | `codecvt_utf16`<char16_t>
UTF-32/UCS4 (char32_t) | `mbrtoc32` / `c32rtomb` | `codecvt`<char32_t, char, mbstate_t> `codecvt_utf8`<char32_t> | `codecvt_utf16`<char32_t>
UCS2/UCS4 (wchar_t) | No | `codecvt_utf8`<wchar_t> | `codecvt_utf16`<wchar_t>
wide (wchar_t) | `codecvt`<wchar_t, char, mbstate_t> `mbsrtowcs` / `wcsrtombs` | No | No

codecvt_base | defines character conversion errors (class template)
codecvt_byname | creates a codecvt facet for the named locale (class template)
codecvt_utf8 (C++11) | converts between UTF-8 and UCS2/UCS4 (class template) [edit]
codecvt_utf16 (C++11) | converts between UTF-16 and UCS2/UCS4 (class template) [edit]
codecvt_utf8_utf16 (C++11) | converts between UTF-8 and UTF-16 (class template) [edit]

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