Wide char in C++

Wide char in C++ is a data type like char, int, string, float, and more. Wide char is another data type that caters to character-type data. However, it is much different from the char data type.

Differences

The following table represents the differences between a char data type and a wide char data type:

Char

Wide Char

Takes up one byte of memory

Takes up two or four bytes of memory. Depends on the compiler

Can take upto 256 values

Can take upto 65536 values

Corresponds to ASCII value

Corresponds to UNICODE value

Syntax

We can use the wide char using the following syntax:

wchar_t <variable name> = L<char val>;

  • The wchar_t keyword is used to declare a variable of type wide char.

  • The L prefix is used before the character data to inform the compiler that the following data is of type wide char.

Code example

Let's understand how wide char variables are used in a C++ program:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
  wchar_t x = L'E';
  wcout << x << endl;
  //size of wide char
  wcout << sizeof(x);
}

Code explanation

  • Line 5: We declare a wide char type and initialize with the value 'E'.

  • Line 6: We use wcout to display the value of a wide char. The w prefix is used before every char type function to make it work with wide char data types, for example, wcout, wcin, and more.

  • Line 7: The sizeof() function returns the size in bytes of the wide char variable.

Strings using wide char

We can also create strings with a wide char array:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
  wchar_t wideCharArray[] = L"Educative";
  wcout<<wideCharArray;
}

Just like a char array, wchar_t arrays can also store strings, and wcout can display this array as a string.

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