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# char16_t

From cppreference.com
< c‎ | string‎ | multibyte

Defined in header `<uchar.h>` |  | (since C11)
typedef uint_least16_t char16_t; |  | (since C11)
Defined in header `<stdint.h>` |  |
typedef /*implementation-defined*/ uint_least16_t; |  | (since C99)

char16_t is an unsigned integer type used for 16-bit wide characters and is the same type as uint_least16_t.

uint_least16_t is the smallest unsigned integer type with width of at least 16 bits.

### [edit] Notes

On any given platform, the width of type char16_t can be greater than 16 bits, but the actual values stored in an object of type char16_t will always have a width of 16 bits.

### [edit] Example

Run this code

    #include <uchar.h>
    #include <stdio.h>

    int main(void)
    {
        char16_t wcs[] = u"zß水🍌"; // or "z\u00df\u6c34\U0001f34c"
        size_t wcs_sz = sizeof wcs / sizeof *wcs;
        printf("%zu UTF-16 code units: [ ", wcs_sz);
        for (size_t n = 0; n < wcs_sz; ++n) printf("%#x ", wcs[n]);
        printf("]\n");
    }

Possible output:

    6 UTF-16 code units: [ 0x7a 0xdf 0x6c34 0xd83c 0xdf4c 0 ]

### [edit] References

- C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):

  - 7.28 Unicode utilities <uchar.h> (p: 398)

  - 7.20.1.2 Minimum-width integer types (p: 290)

- C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):

  - 7.18.1.2 Minimum-width integer types (p: 256)

### [edit] See also

C++ documentation for char16_t

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