Unicode Manipulation

Unicode Manipulation — functions operating on Unicode characters and UTF-8 strings.

Synopsis


#include <glib.h>


typedef     gunichar;
typedef     gunichar2;

gboolean    g_unichar_validate              (gunichar ch);
gboolean    g_unichar_isalnum               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isalpha               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_iscntrl               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isdigit               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isgraph               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_islower               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isprint               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_ispunct               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isspace               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isupper               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isxdigit              (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_istitle               (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_isdefined             (gunichar c);
gboolean    g_unichar_iswide                (gunichar c);
gunichar    g_unichar_toupper               (gunichar c);
gunichar    g_unichar_tolower               (gunichar c);
gunichar    g_unichar_totitle               (gunichar c);
gint        g_unichar_digit_value           (gunichar c);
gint        g_unichar_xdigit_value          (gunichar c);
enum        GUnicodeType;
GUnicodeType g_unichar_type                 (gunichar c);
enum        GUnicodeBreakType;
GUnicodeBreakType g_unichar_break_type      (gunichar c);
void        g_unicode_canonical_ordering    (gunichar *string,
                                             gsize len);
gunichar*   g_unicode_canonical_decomposition
                                            (gunichar ch,
                                             gsize *result_len);
gboolean    g_unichar_get_mirror_char       (gunichar ch,
                                             gunichar *mirrored_ch);

#define     g_utf8_next_char                (p)
gunichar    g_utf8_get_char                 (const gchar *p);
gunichar    g_utf8_get_char_validated       (const  gchar *p,
                                             gssize max_len);
gchar*      g_utf8_offset_to_pointer        (const gchar *str,
                                             glong offset);
glong       g_utf8_pointer_to_offset        (const gchar *str,
                                             const gchar *pos);
gchar*      g_utf8_prev_char                (const gchar *p);
gchar*      g_utf8_find_next_char           (const gchar *p,
                                             const gchar *end);
gchar*      g_utf8_find_prev_char           (const gchar *str,
                                             const gchar *p);
glong       g_utf8_strlen                   (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize max);
gchar*      g_utf8_strncpy                  (gchar *dest,
                                             const gchar *src,
                                             gsize n);
gchar*      g_utf8_strchr                   (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize len,
                                             gunichar c);
gchar*      g_utf8_strrchr                  (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize len,
                                             gunichar c);
gchar*      g_utf8_strreverse               (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);
gboolean    g_utf8_validate                 (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize max_len,
                                             const gchar **end);

gchar*      g_utf8_strup                    (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);
gchar*      g_utf8_strdown                  (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);
gchar*      g_utf8_casefold                 (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);
gchar*      g_utf8_normalize                (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len,
                                             GNormalizeMode mode);
enum        GNormalizeMode;
gint        g_utf8_collate                  (const gchar *str1,
                                             const gchar *str2);
gchar*      g_utf8_collate_key              (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

gunichar2*  g_utf8_to_utf16                 (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gunichar*   g_utf8_to_ucs4                  (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gunichar*   g_utf8_to_ucs4_fast             (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_written);
gunichar*   g_utf16_to_ucs4                 (const gunichar2 *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gchar*      g_utf16_to_utf8                 (const gunichar2 *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gunichar2*  g_ucs4_to_utf16                 (const gunichar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gchar*      g_ucs4_to_utf8                  (const gunichar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);
gint        g_unichar_to_utf8               (gunichar c,
                                             gchar *outbuf);

Description

This section describes a number of functions for dealing with Unicode characters and strings. There are analogues of the traditional ctype.h character classification and case conversion functions, UTF-8 analogues of some string utility functions, functions to perform normalization, case conversion and collation on UTF-8 strings and finally functions to convert between the UTF-8, UTF-16 and UCS-4 encodings of Unicode.

Details

gunichar

typedef guint32 gunichar;

A type which can hold any UCS-4 character code.


gunichar2

typedef guint16 gunichar2;

A type which can hold any UTF-16 character code.


g_unichar_validate ()

gboolean    g_unichar_validate              (gunichar ch);

Checks whether ch is a valid Unicode character. Some possible integer values of ch will not be valid. 0 is considered a valid character, though it's normally a string terminator.

ch : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if ch is a valid Unicode character

g_unichar_isalnum ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isalnum               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is alphanumeric. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is an alphanumeric character

g_unichar_isalpha ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isalpha               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is alphabetic (i.e. a letter). Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is an alphabetic character

g_unichar_iscntrl ()

gboolean    g_unichar_iscntrl               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a control character. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is a control character

g_unichar_isdigit ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isdigit               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is numeric (i.e. a digit). This covers ASCII 0-9 and also digits in other languages/scripts. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is a digit

g_unichar_isgraph ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isgraph               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is printable and not a space (returns FALSE for control characters, format characters, and spaces). g_unichar_isprint() is similar, but returns TRUE for spaces. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is printable unless it's a space

g_unichar_islower ()

gboolean    g_unichar_islower               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a lowercase letter. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is a lowercase letter

g_unichar_isprint ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isprint               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is printable. Unlike g_unichar_isgraph(), returns TRUE for spaces. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is printable

g_unichar_ispunct ()

gboolean    g_unichar_ispunct               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is punctuation or a symbol. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is a punctuation or symbol character

g_unichar_isspace ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isspace               (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a space, tab, or line separator (newline, carriage return, etc.). Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

(Note: don't use this to do word breaking; you have to use Pango or equivalent to get word breaking right, the algorithm is fairly complex.)

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is a punctuation character

g_unichar_isupper ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isupper               (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is uppercase.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if c is an uppercase character

g_unichar_isxdigit ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isxdigit              (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is a hexidecimal digit.

c : a Unicode character.
Returns : TRUE if the character is a hexadecimal digit

g_unichar_istitle ()

gboolean    g_unichar_istitle               (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is titlecase. Some characters in Unicode which are composites, such as the DZ digraph have three case variants instead of just two. The titlecase form is used at the beginning of a word where only the first letter is capitalized. The titlecase form of the DZ digraph is U+01F2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTTER D WITH SMALL LETTER Z.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if the character is titlecase

g_unichar_isdefined ()

gboolean    g_unichar_isdefined             (gunichar c);

Determines if a given character is assigned in the Unicode standard.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if the character has an assigned value

g_unichar_iswide ()

gboolean    g_unichar_iswide                (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is typically rendered in a double-width cell.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : TRUE if the character is wide

g_unichar_toupper ()

gunichar    g_unichar_toupper               (gunichar c);

Converts a character to uppercase.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : the result of converting c to uppercase. If c is not an lowercase or titlecase character, or has no upper case equivalent c is returned unchanged.

g_unichar_tolower ()

gunichar    g_unichar_tolower               (gunichar c);

Converts a character to lower case.

c : a Unicode character.
Returns : the result of converting c to lower case. If c is not an upperlower or titlecase character, or has no lowercase equivalent c is returned unchanged.

g_unichar_totitle ()

gunichar    g_unichar_totitle               (gunichar c);

Converts a character to the titlecase.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : the result of converting c to titlecase. If c is not an uppercase or lowercase character, c is returned unchanged.

g_unichar_digit_value ()

gint        g_unichar_digit_value           (gunichar c);

Determines the numeric value of a character as a decimal digit.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : If c is a decimal digit (according to g_unichar_isdigit()), its numeric value. Otherwise, -1.

g_unichar_xdigit_value ()

gint        g_unichar_xdigit_value          (gunichar c);

Determines the numeric value of a character as a hexidecimal digit.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : If c is a hex digit (according to g_unichar_isxdigit()), its numeric value. Otherwise, -1.

enum GUnicodeType

typedef enum
{
  G_UNICODE_CONTROL,
  G_UNICODE_FORMAT,
  G_UNICODE_UNASSIGNED,
  G_UNICODE_PRIVATE_USE,
  G_UNICODE_SURROGATE,
  G_UNICODE_LOWERCASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_MODIFIER_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_TITLECASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_UPPERCASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_COMBINING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_ENCLOSING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_NON_SPACING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_DECIMAL_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_LETTER_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_CONNECT_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_DASH_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_CLOSE_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_FINAL_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_INITIAL_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_OPEN_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_CURRENCY_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_MODIFIER_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_MATH_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_LINE_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_PARAGRAPH_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_SPACE_SEPARATOR
} GUnicodeType;

These are the possible character classifications. See http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.html.


g_unichar_type ()

GUnicodeType g_unichar_type                 (gunichar c);

Classifies a Unicode character by type.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : the type of the character.

enum GUnicodeBreakType

typedef enum
{
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_MANDATORY,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CARRIAGE_RETURN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_LINE_FEED,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_COMBINING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SURROGATE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_ZERO_WIDTH_SPACE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_INSEPARABLE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NON_BREAKING_GLUE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CONTINGENT,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SPACE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_AFTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_BEFORE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_BEFORE_AND_AFTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HYPHEN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NON_STARTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_OPEN_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CLOSE_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_QUOTATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_EXCLAMATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_IDEOGRAPHIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NUMERIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_INFIX_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_ALPHABETIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_PREFIX,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_POSTFIX,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_COMPLEX_CONTEXT,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_AMBIGUOUS,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_UNKNOWN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NEXT_LINE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_WORD_JOINER
} GUnicodeBreakType;

These are the possible line break classifications. See http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr14/.


g_unichar_break_type ()

GUnicodeBreakType g_unichar_break_type      (gunichar c);

Determines the break type of c. c should be a Unicode character (to derive a character from UTF-8 encoded text, use g_utf8_get_char()). The break type is used to find word and line breaks ("text boundaries"), Pango implements the Unicode boundary resolution algorithms and normally you would use a function such as pango_break() instead of caring about break types yourself.

c : a Unicode character
Returns : the break type of c

g_unicode_canonical_ordering ()

void        g_unicode_canonical_ordering    (gunichar *string,
                                             gsize len);

Computes the canonical ordering of a string in-place. This rearranges decomposed characters in the string according to their combining classes. See the Unicode manual for more information.

string : a UCS-4 encoded string.
len : the maximum length of string to use.

g_unicode_canonical_decomposition ()

gunichar*   g_unicode_canonical_decomposition
                                            (gunichar ch,
                                             gsize *result_len);

Computes the canonical decomposition of a Unicode character.

ch : a Unicode character.
result_len : location to store the length of the return value.
Returns : a newly allocated string of Unicode characters. result_len is set to the resulting length of the string.

g_unichar_get_mirror_char ()

gboolean    g_unichar_get_mirror_char       (gunichar ch,
                                             gunichar *mirrored_ch);

In Unicode, some characters are mirrored. This means that their images are mirrored horizontally in text that is laid out from right to left. For instance, "(" would become its mirror image, ")", in right-to-left text.

If ch has the Unicode mirrored property and there is another unicode character that typically has a glyph that is the mirror image of ch's glyph, puts that character in the address pointed to by mirrored_ch.

ch : a unicode character
mirrored_ch : location to store the mirrored character
Returns : TRUE if ch has a mirrored character and mirrored_ch is filled in, FALSE otherwise

Since 2.4


g_utf8_next_char()

#define     g_utf8_next_char(p)

Skips to the next character in a UTF-8 string. The string must be valid; this macro is as fast as possible, and has no error-checking. You would use this macro to iterate over a string character by character. The macro returns the start of the next UTF-8 character. Before using this macro, use g_utf8_validate() to validate strings that may contain invalid UTF-8.

p :Pointer to the start of a valid UTF-8 character.

g_utf8_get_char ()

gunichar    g_utf8_get_char                 (const gchar *p);

Converts a sequence of bytes encoded as UTF-8 to a Unicode character. If p does not point to a valid UTF-8 encoded character, results are undefined. If you are not sure that the bytes are complete valid Unicode characters, you should use g_utf8_get_char_validated() instead.

p : a pointer to Unicode character encoded as UTF-8
Returns : the resulting character

g_utf8_get_char_validated ()

gunichar    g_utf8_get_char_validated       (const  gchar *p,
                                             gssize max_len);

Convert a sequence of bytes encoded as UTF-8 to a Unicode character. This function checks for incomplete characters, for invalid characters such as characters that are out of the range of Unicode, and for overlong encodings of valid characters.

p : a pointer to Unicode character encoded as UTF-8
max_len : the maximum number of bytes to read, or -1, for no maximum.
Returns : the resulting character. If p points to a partial sequence at the end of a string that could begin a valid character, returns (gunichar)-2; otherwise, if p does not point to a valid UTF-8 encoded Unicode character, returns (gunichar)-1.

g_utf8_offset_to_pointer ()

gchar*      g_utf8_offset_to_pointer        (const gchar *str,
                                             glong offset);

Converts from an integer character offset to a pointer to a position within the string.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
offset : a character offset within str
Returns : the resulting pointer

g_utf8_pointer_to_offset ()

glong       g_utf8_pointer_to_offset        (const gchar *str,
                                             const gchar *pos);

Converts from a pointer to position within a string to a integer character offset.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
pos : a pointer to a position within str
Returns : the resulting character offset

g_utf8_prev_char ()

gchar*      g_utf8_prev_char                (const gchar *p);

Finds the previous UTF-8 character in the string before p.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte. If p might be the first character of the string, you must use g_utf8_find_prev_char() instead.

p : a pointer to a position within a UTF-8 encoded string
Returns : a pointer to the found character.

g_utf8_find_next_char ()

gchar*      g_utf8_find_next_char           (const gchar *p,
                                             const gchar *end);

Finds the start of the next UTF-8 character in the string after p.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte.

p : a pointer to a position within a UTF-8 encoded string
end : a pointer to the end of the string, or NULL to indicate that the string is nul-terminated, in which case the returned value will be
Returns : a pointer to the found character or NULL

g_utf8_find_prev_char ()

gchar*      g_utf8_find_prev_char           (const gchar *str,
                                             const gchar *p);

Given a position p with a UTF-8 encoded string str, find the start of the previous UTF-8 character starting before p. Returns NULL if no UTF-8 characters are present in p before str.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte.

str : pointer to the beginning of a UTF-8 encoded string
p : pointer to some position within str
Returns : a pointer to the found character or NULL.

g_utf8_strlen ()

glong       g_utf8_strlen                   (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize max);

Returns the length of the string in characters.

p : pointer to the start of a UTF-8 encoded string.
max : the maximum number of bytes to examine. If max is less than 0, then the string is assumed to be nul-terminated. If max is 0, p will not be examined and may be NULL.
Returns : the length of the string in characters

g_utf8_strncpy ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strncpy                  (gchar *dest,
                                             const gchar *src,
                                             gsize n);

Like the standard C strncpy() function, but copies a given number of characters instead of a given number of bytes. The src string must be valid UTF-8 encoded text. (Use g_utf8_validate() on all text before trying to use UTF-8 utility functions with it.)

dest : buffer to fill with characters from src
src : UTF-8 encoded string
n : character count
Returns : dest

g_utf8_strchr ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strchr                   (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize len,
                                             gunichar c);

Finds the leftmost occurrence of the given ISO10646 character in a UTF-8 encoded string, while limiting the search to len bytes. If len is -1, allow unbounded search.

p : a nul-terminated UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of p
c : a ISO10646 character
Returns : NULL if the string does not contain the character, otherwise, a pointer to the start of the leftmost occurrence of the character in the string.

g_utf8_strrchr ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strrchr                  (const gchar *p,
                                             gssize len,
                                             gunichar c);

Find the rightmost occurrence of the given ISO10646 character in a UTF-8 encoded string, while limiting the search to len bytes. If len is -1, allow unbounded search.

p : a nul-terminated UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of p
c : a ISO10646 character
Returns : NULL if the string does not contain the character, otherwise, a pointer to the start of the rightmost occurrence of the character in the string.

g_utf8_strreverse ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strreverse               (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

Reverses a UTF-8 string. str must be valid UTF-8 encoded text. (Use g_utf8_validate() on all text before trying to use UTF-8 utility functions with it.)

Note that unlike g_strreverse(), this function returns newly-allocated memory, which should be freed with g_free() when no longer needed.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is nul-terminated.
Returns : a newly-allocated string which is the reverse of str.

Since 2.2


g_utf8_validate ()

gboolean    g_utf8_validate                 (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize max_len,
                                             const gchar **end);

Validates UTF-8 encoded text. str is the text to validate; if str is nul-terminated, then max_len can be -1, otherwise max_len should be the number of bytes to validate. If end is non-NULL, then the end of the valid range will be stored there (i.e. the start of the first invalid character if some bytes were invalid, or the end of the text being validated otherwise).

Note that g_utf8_validate() returns FALSE if max_len is positive and NUL is met before max_len bytes have been read.

Returns TRUE if all of str was valid. Many GLib and GTK+ routines require valid UTF-8 as input; so data read from a file or the network should be checked with g_utf8_validate() before doing anything else with it.

str : a pointer to character data
max_len : max bytes to validate, or -1 to go until NUL
end : return location for end of valid data
Returns : TRUE if the text was valid UTF-8

g_utf8_strup ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strup                    (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

Converts all Unicode characters in the string that have a case to uppercase. The exact manner that this is done depends on the current locale, and may result in the number of characters in the string increasing. (For instance, the German ess-zet will be changed to SS.)

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : length of str, in bytes, or -1 if str is nul-terminated.
Returns : a newly allocated string, with all characters converted to uppercase.

g_utf8_strdown ()

gchar*      g_utf8_strdown                  (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

Converts all Unicode characters in the string that have a case to lowercase. The exact manner that this is done depends on the current locale, and may result in the number of characters in the string changing.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : length of str, in bytes, or -1 if str is nul-terminated.
Returns : a newly allocated string, with all characters converted to lowercase.

g_utf8_casefold ()

gchar*      g_utf8_casefold                 (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

Converts a string into a form that is independent of case. The result will not correspond to any particular case, but can be compared for equality or ordered with the results of calling g_utf8_casefold() on other strings.

Note that calling g_utf8_casefold() followed by g_utf8_collate() is only an approximation to the correct linguistic case insensitive ordering, though it is a fairly good one. Getting this exactly right would require a more sophisticated collation function that takes case sensitivity into account. GLib does not currently provide such a function.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : length of str, in bytes, or -1 if str is nul-terminated.
Returns : a newly allocated string, that is a case independent form of str.

g_utf8_normalize ()

gchar*      g_utf8_normalize                (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len,
                                             GNormalizeMode mode);

Converts a string into canonical form, standardizing such issues as whether a character with an accent is represented as a base character and combining accent or as a single precomposed character. You should generally call g_utf8_normalize() before comparing two Unicode strings.

The normalization mode G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT only standardizes differences that do not affect the text content, such as the above-mentioned accent representation. G_NORMALIZE_ALL also standardizes the "compatibility" characters in Unicode, such as SUPERSCRIPT THREE to the standard forms (in this case DIGIT THREE). Formatting information may be lost but for most text operations such characters should be considered the same. For example, g_utf8_collate() normalizes with G_NORMALIZE_ALL as its first step.

G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE and G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE are like G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT and G_NORMALIZE_ALL, but returned a result with composed forms rather than a maximally decomposed form. This is often useful if you intend to convert the string to a legacy encoding or pass it to a system with less capable Unicode handling.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string.
len : length of str, in bytes, or -1 if str is nul-terminated.
mode : the type of normalization to perform.
Returns : a newly allocated string, that is the normalized form of str.

enum GNormalizeMode

typedef enum {
  G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFD = G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT,
  G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFC = G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_ALL,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFKD = G_NORMALIZE_ALL,
  G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFKC = G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE
} GNormalizeMode;

Defines how a Unicode string is transformed in a canonical form, standardizing such issues as whether a character with an accent is represented as a base character and combining accent or as a single precomposed character. Unicode strings should generally be normalized before comparing them.

G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULTstandardize differences that do not affect the text content, such as the above-mentioned accent representation.
G_NORMALIZE_NFDanother name for G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT.
G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSElike G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT, but with composed forms rather than a maximally decomposed form.
G_NORMALIZE_NFCanother name for G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE.
G_NORMALIZE_ALLbeyond G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT also standardize the "compatibility" characters in Unicode, such as SUPERSCRIPT THREE to the standard forms (in this case DIGIT THREE). Formatting information may be lost but for most text operations such characters should be considered the same.
G_NORMALIZE_NFKDanother name for G_NORMALIZE_ALL.
G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSElike G_NORMALIZE_ALL, but with composed forms rather than a maximally decomposed form.
G_NORMALIZE_NFKCanother name for G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE.

g_utf8_collate ()

gint        g_utf8_collate                  (const gchar *str1,
                                             const gchar *str2);

Compares two strings for ordering using the linguistically correct rules for the current locale. When sorting a large number of strings, it will be significantly faster to obtain collation keys with g_utf8_collate_key() and compare the keys with strcmp() when sorting instead of sorting the original strings.

str1 : a UTF-8 encoded string
str2 : a UTF-8 encoded string
Returns : < 0 if str1 compares before str2, 0 if they compare equal, > 0 if str1 compares after str2.

g_utf8_collate_key ()

gchar*      g_utf8_collate_key              (const gchar *str,
                                             gssize len);

Converts a string into a collation key that can be compared with other collation keys using strcmp(). The results of comparing the collation keys of two strings with strcmp() will always be the same as comparing the two original keys with g_utf8_collate().

str : a UTF-8 encoded string.
len : length of str, in bytes, or -1 if str is nul-terminated.
Returns : a newly allocated string. This string should be freed with g_free() when you are done with it.

g_utf8_to_utf16 ()

gunichar2*  g_utf8_to_utf16                 (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to UTF-16. A 0 word will be added to the result after the converted text.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is nul-terminated.
items_read : location to store number of bytes read, or NULL. If NULL, then G_CONVERT_ERROR_PARTIAL_INPUT will be returned in case str contains a trailing partial character. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here.
items_written : location to store number of words written, or NULL. The value stored here does not include the trailing 0 word.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UTF-16 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_utf8_to_ucs4 ()

gunichar*   g_utf8_to_ucs4                  (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4. A trailing 0 will be added to the string after the converted text.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is nul-terminated.
items_read : location to store number of bytes read, or NULL. If NULL, then G_CONVERT_ERROR_PARTIAL_INPUT will be returned in case str contains a trailing partial character. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here.
items_written : location to store number of characters written or NULL. The value here stored does not include the trailing 0 character.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UCS-4 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_utf8_to_ucs4_fast ()

gunichar*   g_utf8_to_ucs4_fast             (const gchar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_written);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4, assuming valid UTF-8 input. This function is roughly twice as fast as g_utf8_to_ucs4() but does no error checking on the input.

str : a UTF-8 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is nul-terminated.
items_written : location to store the number of characters in the result, or NULL.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UCS-4 string. This value must be freed with g_free().

g_utf16_to_ucs4 ()

gunichar*   g_utf16_to_ucs4                 (const gunichar2 *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-16 to UCS-4. The result will be terminated with a 0 character.

str : a UTF-16 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is terminated with a 0 character.
items_read : location to store number of words read, or NULL. If NULL, then G_CONVERT_ERROR_PARTIAL_INPUT will be returned in case str contains a trailing partial character. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here.
items_written : location to store number of characters written, or NULL. The value stored here does not include the trailing 0 character.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UCS-4 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_utf16_to_utf8 ()

gchar*      g_utf16_to_utf8                 (const gunichar2 *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-16 to UTF-8. The result will be terminated with a 0 byte.

Note that the input is expected to be already in native endianness, an initial byte-order-mark character is not handled specially. g_convert() can be used to convert a byte buffer of UTF-16 data of ambiguous endianess.

str : a UTF-16 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is terminated with a 0 character.
items_read : location to store number of words read, or NULL. If NULL, then G_CONVERT_ERROR_PARTIAL_INPUT will be returned in case str contains a trailing partial character. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here.
items_written : location to store number of bytes written, or NULL. The value stored here does not include the trailing 0 byte.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UTF-8 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_ucs4_to_utf16 ()

gunichar2*  g_ucs4_to_utf16                 (const gunichar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from UCS-4 to UTF-16. A 0 word will be added to the result after the converted text.

str : a UCS-4 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is terminated with a 0 character.
items_read : location to store number of bytes read, or NULL. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here.
items_written : location to store number of words written, or NULL. The value stored here does not include the trailing 0 word.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UTF-16 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_ucs4_to_utf8 ()

gchar*      g_ucs4_to_utf8                  (const gunichar *str,
                                             glong len,
                                             glong *items_read,
                                             glong *items_written,
                                             GError **error);

Convert a string from a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4. to UTF-8. The result will be terminated with a 0 byte.

str : a UCS-4 encoded string
len : the maximum length of str to use. If len < 0, then the string is terminated with a 0 character.
items_read : location to store number of characters read read, or NULL.
items_written : location to store number of bytes written or NULL. The value here stored does not include the trailing 0 byte.
error : location to store the error occuring, or NULL to ignore errors. Any of the errors in GConvertError other than G_CONVERT_ERROR_NO_CONVERSION may occur.
Returns : a pointer to a newly allocated UTF-8 string. This value must be freed with g_free(). If an error occurs, NULL will be returned and error set.

g_unichar_to_utf8 ()

gint        g_unichar_to_utf8               (gunichar c,
                                             gchar *outbuf);

Converts a single character to UTF-8.

c : a ISO10646 character code
outbuf : output buffer, must have at least 6 bytes of space. If NULL, the length will be computed and returned and nothing will be written to outbuf.
Returns : number of bytes written

See Also

g_locale_to_utf8(), g_locale_from_utf8()

Convenience functions for converting between UTF-8 and the locale encoding.