How Do C Compilers Handle Unicode Characters in Source Code?

Encoding in C Source Code: A Comprehensive Guide

The encoding of C source code is a crucial aspect that determines how characters are represented within a source file. The C standard provides guidelines and support for Unicode in both source code and strings.

Standard Character Encoding

The C standard requires implementations to support the basic source character set, which includes ASCII characters. Additionally, implementations must provide a way to represent non-ASCII characters using universal character names (UCN) in the form of uffff or Uffffffff.

Unicode in Source Code

While the standard does not explicitly define a standard encoding for source code, it allows implementations to map characters in the source file to the basic source character set or UCNs. This mapping is implementation-defined, meaning different compilers may handle non-ASCII characters differently.

Unicode for Non-ASCII Characters in Comments

Yes, you can use non-ASCII characters such as Chinese characters in comments by using UCNs. This enables comments to contain any Unicode character, not just the basic source character set.

Unicode for Strings

C supports Unicode strings through the wstring data type. Unicode string literals can be written with the prefix L, as seen in the example provided:

<code class="cpp">wstring str = L"Strange chars: â Țđ ě €€";</code>

The string str will contain a sequence of Unicode characters, and these characters can be manipulated and processed just like any other string in C code.

Implementation-Specific Encoding

It's important to note that the actual encoding used for a C source file is implementation-specific. Compilers and programming environments provide various options to specify the input and execution character sets, allowing you to customize how non-ASCII characters are handled.

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