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The classification functions are also generalized by the ISO C
standard. Instead of just allowing the two standard mappings, a
locale can contain others. Again, the localedef
program
already supports generating such locale data files.
This data type is defined as a scalar type which can hold a value representing the locale-dependent character mapping. There is no way to construct such a value apart from using the return value of the
wctrans
function.
The
wctrans
function has to be used to find out whether a named mapping is defined in the current locale selected for theLC_CTYPE
category. If the returned value is non-zero, you can use it afterwards in calls totowctrans
. If the return value is zero no such mapping is known in the current locale.Beside locale-specific mappings there are two mappings which are guaranteed to be available in every locale:
"tolower"
"toupper"
towctrans
maps the input character wc according to the rules of the mapping for which desc is a descriptor, and returns the value it finds. desc must be obtained by a successful call towctrans
.
For the generally available mappings, the ISO C standard defines
convenient shortcuts so that it is not necessary to call wctrans
for them.
If wc is an upper-case letter,
towlower
returns the corresponding lower-case letter. If wc is not an upper-case letter, wc is returned unchanged.
towlower
can be implemented usingtowctrans (wc, wctrans ("tolower"))
If wc is a lower-case letter,
towupper
returns the corresponding upper-case letter. Otherwise wc is returned unchanged.
towupper
can be implemented usingtowctrans (wc, wctrans ("toupper"))
The same warnings given in the last section for the use of the wide
character classification functions apply here. It is not possible to
simply cast a char
type value to a wint_t
and use it as an
argument to towctrans
calls.