wctype(3)

wctype3

Wide character class functions

Usage

#include <wctype.h>

int

iswctype(wint_t wc, wctype_t charclass);

wctype_t

wctype(const char *property);

Library

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

Overview

The wctype() function returns a value of type wctype_t which represents the requested wide character class and may be used as the second argument for calls to iswctype().

The following character class names are recognised:

alnumcntrlideogramprintspacexdigit
alphadigitlowerpunctspecial
blankgraphphonogramruneupper

The iswctype() function checks whether the wide character wc is in the character class charclass.

Return values

The iswctype() function returns non-zero if and only if wc has the property described by charclass, or charclass is zero.

The wctype() function returns 0 if property is invalid, otherwise it returns a value of type wctype_t that can be used in subsequent calls to iswctype().

Examples

Reimplement iswalpha(3) in terms of iswctype() and wctype():

int
myiswalpha(wint_t wc)
{
	return (iswctype(wc, wctype("alpha")));
}

Releases

56 releases since FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE; the text changed 34 times.

  1. 5.0–5.2.1
  2. 5.3–6.1
  3. 6.2–6.3
  4. 6.4
  5. 7.0
  6. 7.1
  7. 7.2
  8. 7.3
  9. 7.4
  10. 8.0
  11. 8.1
  12. 8.2
  13. 8.3
  14. 8.4
  15. 9.0
  16. 9.1
  17. 9.2
  18. 9.3
  19. 10.0
  20. 10.1
  21. 10.2
  22. 10.3
  23. 10.4
  24. 11.0
  25. 11.1
  26. 11.2
  27. 11.3
  28. 11.4
  29. 12.0
  30. 12.1
  31. 12.2
  32. 12.3
  33. 12.4
  34. 13.0–13.2
  35. 13.3–16.0

Standards

The iswctype() and wctype() functions conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”). The “ideogram”, “phonogram”, “special”, and “rune” character classes are extensions.

History

The iswctype() and wctype() functions first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.