gunichar

typedef guint32 gunichar;

A type which can hold any UCS-4 character code.

gunichar2

typedef guint16 gunichar2;

A type which can hold any UTF-16 code point^[3].

g_unichar_validate ()

gboolean            g_unichar_validate                  (gunichar ch);

Checks whether ch is a valid Unicode character. Some possible integer values of ch will not be valid. 0 is considered a valid character, though it's normally a string terminator.

g_unichar_isalnum ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isalnum                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is alphanumeric. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_isalpha ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isalpha                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is alphabetic (i.e. a letter). Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_iscntrl ()

gboolean            g_unichar_iscntrl                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a control character. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_isdefined ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isdefined                 (gunichar c);

Determines if a given character is assigned in the Unicode standard.

g_unichar_isdigit ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isdigit                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is numeric (i.e. a digit). This covers ASCII 0-9 and also digits in other languages/scripts. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_isgraph ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isgraph                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is printable and not a space (returns FALSE for control characters, format characters, and spaces). g_unichar_isprint() is similar, but returns TRUE for spaces. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_islower ()

gboolean            g_unichar_islower                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a lowercase letter. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_ismark ()

gboolean            g_unichar_ismark                    (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a mark (non-spacing mark, combining mark, or enclosing mark in Unicode speak). Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

Note: in most cases where isalpha characters are allowed, ismark characters should be allowed to as they are essential for writing most European languages as well as many non-Latin scripts.

Since 2.14

g_unichar_isprint ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isprint                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is printable. Unlike g_unichar_isgraph(), returns TRUE for spaces. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_ispunct ()

gboolean            g_unichar_ispunct                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is punctuation or a symbol. Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

g_unichar_isspace ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isspace                   (gunichar c);

Determines whether a character is a space, tab, or line separator (newline, carriage return, etc.). Given some UTF-8 text, obtain a character value with g_utf8_get_char().

(Note: don't use this to do word breaking; you have to use Pango or equivalent to get word breaking right, the algorithm is fairly complex.)

g_unichar_istitle ()

gboolean            g_unichar_istitle                   (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is titlecase. Some characters in Unicode which are composites, such as the DZ digraph have three case variants instead of just two. The titlecase form is used at the beginning of a word where only the first letter is capitalized. The titlecase form of the DZ digraph is U+01F2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTTER D WITH SMALL LETTER Z.

g_unichar_isupper ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isupper                   (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is uppercase.

g_unichar_isxdigit ()

gboolean            g_unichar_isxdigit                  (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is a hexidecimal digit.

g_unichar_iswide ()

gboolean            g_unichar_iswide                    (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is typically rendered in a double-width cell.

g_unichar_iswide_cjk ()

gboolean            g_unichar_iswide_cjk                (gunichar c);

Determines if a character is typically rendered in a double-width cell under legacy East Asian locales. If a character is wide according to g_unichar_iswide(), then it is also reported wide with this function, but the converse is not necessarily true. See the Unicode Standard Annex 11 for details.

Since 2.12

g_unichar_iszerowidth ()

gboolean            g_unichar_iszerowidth               (gunichar c);

Determines if a given character typically takes zero width when rendered. The return value is TRUE for all non-spacing and enclosing marks (e.g., combining accents), format characters, zero-width space, but not U+00AD SOFT HYPHEN.

A typical use of this function is with one of g_unichar_iswide() or g_unichar_iswide_cjk() to determine the number of cells a string occupies when displayed on a grid display (terminals). However, note that not all terminals support zero-width rendering of zero-width marks.

Since 2.14

g_unichar_toupper ()

gunichar            g_unichar_toupper                   (gunichar c);

Converts a character to uppercase.

g_unichar_tolower ()

gunichar            g_unichar_tolower                   (gunichar c);

Converts a character to lower case.

g_unichar_totitle ()

gunichar            g_unichar_totitle                   (gunichar c);

Converts a character to the titlecase.

g_unichar_digit_value ()

gint                g_unichar_digit_value               (gunichar c);

Determines the numeric value of a character as a decimal digit.

g_unichar_xdigit_value ()

gint                g_unichar_xdigit_value              (gunichar c);

Determines the numeric value of a character as a hexidecimal digit.

enum GUnicodeType

typedef enum
{
  G_UNICODE_CONTROL,
  G_UNICODE_FORMAT,
  G_UNICODE_UNASSIGNED,
  G_UNICODE_PRIVATE_USE,
  G_UNICODE_SURROGATE,
  G_UNICODE_LOWERCASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_MODIFIER_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_TITLECASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_UPPERCASE_LETTER,
  G_UNICODE_COMBINING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_ENCLOSING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_NON_SPACING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_DECIMAL_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_LETTER_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_NUMBER,
  G_UNICODE_CONNECT_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_DASH_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_CLOSE_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_FINAL_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_INITIAL_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_OPEN_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_CURRENCY_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_MODIFIER_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_MATH_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_OTHER_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_LINE_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_PARAGRAPH_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_SPACE_SEPARATOR
} GUnicodeType;

These are the possible character classifications from the Unicode specification. See http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.html.

g_unichar_type ()

GUnicodeType        g_unichar_type                      (gunichar c);

Classifies a Unicode character by type.

enum GUnicodeBreakType

typedef enum
{
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_MANDATORY,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CARRIAGE_RETURN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_LINE_FEED,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_COMBINING_MARK,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SURROGATE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_ZERO_WIDTH_SPACE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_INSEPARABLE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NON_BREAKING_GLUE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CONTINGENT,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SPACE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_AFTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_BEFORE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_BEFORE_AND_AFTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HYPHEN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NON_STARTER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_OPEN_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_CLOSE_PUNCTUATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_QUOTATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_EXCLAMATION,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_IDEOGRAPHIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NUMERIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_INFIX_SEPARATOR,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_SYMBOL,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_ALPHABETIC,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_PREFIX,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_POSTFIX,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_COMPLEX_CONTEXT,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_AMBIGUOUS,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_UNKNOWN,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_NEXT_LINE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_WORD_JOINER,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HANGUL_L_JAMO,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HANGUL_V_JAMO,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HANGUL_T_JAMO,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HANGUL_LV_SYLLABLE,
  G_UNICODE_BREAK_HANGUL_LVT_SYLLABLE
} GUnicodeBreakType;

These are the possible line break classifications. The five Hangul types were added in Unicode 4.1, so, has been introduced in GLib 2.10. Note that new types may be added in the future. Applications should be ready to handle unknown values. They may be regarded as G_UNICODE_BREAK_UNKNOWN. See http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr14/.

g_unichar_break_type ()

GUnicodeBreakType   g_unichar_break_type                (gunichar c);

Determines the break type of c. c should be a Unicode character (to derive a character from UTF-8 encoded text, use g_utf8_get_char()). The break type is used to find word and line breaks ("text boundaries"), Pango implements the Unicode boundary resolution algorithms and normally you would use a function such as pango_break() instead of caring about break types yourself.

g_unichar_combining_class ()

gint                g_unichar_combining_class           (gunichar uc);

Determines the canonical combining class of a Unicode character.

Since 2.14

g_unicode_canonical_ordering ()

void                g_unicode_canonical_ordering        (gunichar *string,
                                                         gsize len);

Computes the canonical ordering of a string in-place. This rearranges decomposed characters in the string according to their combining classes. See the Unicode manual for more information.

g_unicode_canonical_decomposition ()

gunichar*           g_unicode_canonical_decomposition   (gunichar ch,
                                                         gsize *result_len);

Computes the canonical decomposition of a Unicode character.

g_unichar_get_mirror_char ()

gboolean            g_unichar_get_mirror_char           (gunichar ch,
                                                         gunichar *mirrored_ch);

In Unicode, some characters are mirrored. This means that their images are mirrored horizontally in text that is laid out from right to left. For instance, "(" would become its mirror image, ")", in right-to-left text.

If ch has the Unicode mirrored property and there is another unicode character that typically has a glyph that is the mirror image of ch's glyph and mirrored_ch is set, it puts that character in the address pointed to by mirrored_ch. Otherwise the original character is put.

Since 2.4

enum GUnicodeScript

typedef enum 
{                         /* ISO 15924 code */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_INVALID_CODE = -1,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_COMMON       = 0,   /* Zyyy */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_INHERITED,          /* Qaai */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_ARABIC,             /* Arab */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_ARMENIAN,           /* Armn */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BENGALI,            /* Beng */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BOPOMOFO,           /* Bopo */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CHEROKEE,           /* Cher */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_COPTIC,             /* Qaac */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CYRILLIC,           /* Cyrl (Cyrs) */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_DESERET,            /* Dsrt */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_DEVANAGARI,         /* Deva */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_ETHIOPIC,           /* Ethi */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GEORGIAN,           /* Geor (Geon, Geoa) */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GOTHIC,             /* Goth */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GREEK,              /* Grek */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GUJARATI,           /* Gujr */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GURMUKHI,           /* Guru */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_HAN,                /* Hani */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_HANGUL,             /* Hang */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_HEBREW,             /* Hebr */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_HIRAGANA,           /* Hira */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_KANNADA,            /* Knda */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_KATAKANA,           /* Kana */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_KHMER,              /* Khmr */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LAO,                /* Laoo */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LATIN,              /* Latn (Latf, Latg) */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_MALAYALAM,          /* Mlym */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_MONGOLIAN,          /* Mong */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_MYANMAR,            /* Mymr */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_OGHAM,              /* Ogam */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_OLD_ITALIC,         /* Ital */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_ORIYA,              /* Orya */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_RUNIC,              /* Runr */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SINHALA,            /* Sinh */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SYRIAC,             /* Syrc (Syrj, Syrn, Syre) */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TAMIL,              /* Taml */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TELUGU,             /* Telu */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_THAANA,             /* Thaa */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_THAI,               /* Thai */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TIBETAN,            /* Tibt */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CANADIAN_ABORIGINAL, /* Cans */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_YI,                 /* Yiii */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TAGALOG,            /* Tglg */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_HANUNOO,            /* Hano */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BUHID,              /* Buhd */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TAGBANWA,           /* Tagb */

  /* Unicode-4.0 additions */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BRAILLE,            /* Brai */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CYPRIOT,            /* Cprt */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LIMBU,              /* Limb */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_OSMANYA,            /* Osma */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SHAVIAN,            /* Shaw */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LINEAR_B,           /* Linb */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TAI_LE,             /* Tale */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_UGARITIC,           /* Ugar */
      
  /* Unicode-4.1 additions */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_NEW_TAI_LUE,        /* Talu */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BUGINESE,           /* Bugi */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_GLAGOLITIC,         /* Glag */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_TIFINAGH,           /* Tfng */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SYLOTI_NAGRI,       /* Sylo */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_OLD_PERSIAN,        /* Xpeo */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_KHAROSHTHI,         /* Khar */

  /* Unicode-5.0 additions */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_UNKNOWN,            /* Zzzz */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_BALINESE,           /* Bali */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CUNEIFORM,          /* Xsux */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_PHOENICIAN,         /* Phnx */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_PHAGS_PA,           /* Phag */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_NKO,                /* Nkoo */

  /* Unicode-5.1 additions */
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_KAYAH_LI,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LEPCHA,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_REJANG,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SUNDANESE,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_SAURASHTRA,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CHAM,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_OL_CHIKI,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_VAI,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_CARIAN,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LYCIAN,
  G_UNICODE_SCRIPT_LYDIAN
} GUnicodeScript;

The GUnicodeScript enumeration identifies different writing systems. The values correspond to the names as defined in the Unicode standard. The enumeration has been added in GLib 2.14, and is interchangeable with PangoScript. Note that new types may be added in the future. Applications should be ready to handle unknown values. See Unicode Standard Annex "" Script names.

g_unichar_get_script ()

GUnicodeScript      g_unichar_get_script                (gunichar ch);

Looks up the GUnicodeScript for a particular character (as defined by Unicode Standard Annex 24). No check is made for ch being a valid Unicode character; if you pass in invalid character, the result is undefined.

This function is equivalent to pango_script_for_unichar() and the two are interchangeable.

Since 2.14

g_utf8_next_char()

#define             g_utf8_next_char(p)

Skips to the next character in a UTF-8 string. The string must be valid; this macro is as fast as possible, and has no error-checking. You would use this macro to iterate over a string character by character. The macro returns the start of the next UTF-8 character. Before using this macro, use g_utf8_validate() to validate strings that may contain invalid UTF-8.

g_utf8_get_char ()

gunichar            g_utf8_get_char                     (const gchar *p);

Converts a sequence of bytes encoded as UTF-8 to a Unicode character. If p does not point to a valid UTF-8 encoded character, results are undefined. If you are not sure that the bytes are complete valid Unicode characters, you should use g_utf8_get_char_validated() instead.

g_utf8_get_char_validated ()

gunichar            g_utf8_get_char_validated           (const gchar *p,
                                                         gssize max_len);

Convert a sequence of bytes encoded as UTF-8 to a Unicode character. This function checks for incomplete characters, for invalid characters such as characters that are out of the range of Unicode, and for overlong encodings of valid characters.

g_utf8_offset_to_pointer ()

gchar*              g_utf8_offset_to_pointer            (const gchar *str,
                                                         glong offset);

Converts from an integer character offset to a pointer to a position within the string.

Since 2.10, this function allows to pass a negative offset to step backwards. It is usually worth stepping backwards from the end instead of forwards if offset is in the last fourth of the string, since moving forward is about 3 times faster than moving backward.

g_utf8_pointer_to_offset ()

glong               g_utf8_pointer_to_offset            (const gchar *str,
                                                         const gchar *pos);

Converts from a pointer to position within a string to a integer character offset.

Since 2.10, this function allows pos to be before str, and returns a negative offset in this case.

g_utf8_prev_char ()

gchar*              g_utf8_prev_char                    (const gchar *p);

Finds the previous UTF-8 character in the string before p.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte. If p might be the first character of the string, you must use g_utf8_find_prev_char() instead.

g_utf8_find_next_char ()

gchar*              g_utf8_find_next_char               (const gchar *p,
                                                         const gchar *end);

Finds the start of the next UTF-8 character in the string after p.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte.

g_utf8_find_prev_char ()

gchar*              g_utf8_find_prev_char               (const gchar *str,
                                                         const gchar *p);

Given a position p with a UTF-8 encoded string str, find the start of the previous UTF-8 character starting before p. Returns NULL if no UTF-8 characters are present in str before p.

p does not have to be at the beginning of a UTF-8 character. No check is made to see if the character found is actually valid other than it starts with an appropriate byte.

g_utf8_strlen ()

glong               g_utf8_strlen                       (const gchar *p,
                                                         gssize max);

Returns the length of the string in characters.

g_utf8_strncpy ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strncpy                      (gchar *dest,
                                                         const gchar *src,
                                                         gsize n);

Like the standard C strncpy() function, but copies a given number of characters instead of a given number of bytes. The src string must be valid UTF-8 encoded text. (Use g_utf8_validate() on all text before trying to use UTF-8 utility functions with it.)

g_utf8_strchr ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strchr                       (const gchar *p,
                                                         gssize len,
                                                         gunichar c);

Finds the leftmost occurrence of the given Unicode character in a UTF-8 encoded string, while limiting the search to len bytes. If len is -1, allow unbounded search.

g_utf8_strrchr ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strrchr                      (const gchar *p,
                                                         gssize len,
                                                         gunichar c);

Find the rightmost occurrence of the given Unicode character in a UTF-8 encoded string, while limiting the search to len bytes. If len is -1, allow unbounded search.

g_utf8_strreverse ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strreverse                   (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Reverses a UTF-8 string. str must be valid UTF-8 encoded text. (Use g_utf8_validate() on all text before trying to use UTF-8 utility functions with it.)

This function is intended for programmatic uses of reversed strings. It pays no attention to decomposed characters, combining marks, byte order marks, directional indicators (LRM, LRO, etc) and similar characters which might need special handling when reversing a string for display purposes.

Note that unlike g_strreverse(), this function returns newly-allocated memory, which should be freed with g_free() when no longer needed.

Since 2.2

g_utf8_validate ()

gboolean            g_utf8_validate                     (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize max_len,
                                                         const gchar **end);

Validates UTF-8 encoded text. str is the text to validate; if str is nul-terminated, then max_len can be -1, otherwise max_len should be the number of bytes to validate. If end is non-NULL, then the end of the valid range will be stored there (i.e. the start of the first invalid character if some bytes were invalid, or the end of the text being validated otherwise).

Note that g_utf8_validate() returns FALSE if max_len is positive and NUL is met before max_len bytes have been read.

Returns TRUE if all of str was valid. Many GLib and GTK+ routines require valid UTF-8 as input; so data read from a file or the network should be checked with g_utf8_validate() before doing anything else with it.

g_utf8_strup ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strup                        (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Converts all Unicode characters in the string that have a case to uppercase. The exact manner that this is done depends on the current locale, and may result in the number of characters in the string increasing. (For instance, the German ess-zet will be changed to SS.)

g_utf8_strdown ()

gchar*              g_utf8_strdown                      (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Converts all Unicode characters in the string that have a case to lowercase. The exact manner that this is done depends on the current locale, and may result in the number of characters in the string changing.

g_utf8_casefold ()

gchar*              g_utf8_casefold                     (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Converts a string into a form that is independent of case. The result will not correspond to any particular case, but can be compared for equality or ordered with the results of calling g_utf8_casefold() on other strings.

Note that calling g_utf8_casefold() followed by g_utf8_collate() is only an approximation to the correct linguistic case insensitive ordering, though it is a fairly good one. Getting this exactly right would require a more sophisticated collation function that takes case sensitivity into account. GLib does not currently provide such a function.

g_utf8_normalize ()

gchar*              g_utf8_normalize                    (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len,
                                                         GNormalizeMode mode);

Converts a string into canonical form, standardizing such issues as whether a character with an accent is represented as a base character and combining accent or as a single precomposed character. The string has to be valid UTF-8, otherwise NULL is returned. You should generally call g_utf8_normalize() before comparing two Unicode strings.

The normalization mode G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT only standardizes differences that do not affect the text content, such as the above-mentioned accent representation. G_NORMALIZE_ALL also standardizes the "compatibility" characters in Unicode, such as SUPERSCRIPT THREE to the standard forms (in this case DIGIT THREE). Formatting information may be lost but for most text operations such characters should be considered the same. For example, g_utf8_collate() normalizes with G_NORMALIZE_ALL as its first step.

G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE and G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE are like G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT and G_NORMALIZE_ALL, but returned a result with composed forms rather than a maximally decomposed form. This is often useful if you intend to convert the string to a legacy encoding or pass it to a system with less capable Unicode handling.

enum GNormalizeMode

typedef enum {
  G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFD = G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT,
  G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFC = G_NORMALIZE_DEFAULT_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_ALL,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFKD = G_NORMALIZE_ALL,
  G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE,
  G_NORMALIZE_NFKC = G_NORMALIZE_ALL_COMPOSE
} GNormalizeMode;

Defines how a Unicode string is transformed in a canonical form, standardizing such issues as whether a character with an accent is represented as a base character and combining accent or as a single precomposed character. Unicode strings should generally be normalized before comparing them.

g_utf8_collate ()

gint                g_utf8_collate                      (const gchar *str1,
                                                         const gchar *str2);

Compares two strings for ordering using the linguistically correct rules for the current locale. When sorting a large number of strings, it will be significantly faster to obtain collation keys with g_utf8_collate_key() and compare the keys with strcmp() when sorting instead of sorting the original strings.

g_utf8_collate_key ()

gchar*              g_utf8_collate_key                  (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Converts a string into a collation key that can be compared with other collation keys produced by the same function using strcmp().

The results of comparing the collation keys of two strings with strcmp() will always be the same as comparing the two original keys with g_utf8_collate().

Note that this function depends on the current locale.

g_utf8_collate_key_for_filename ()

gchar*              g_utf8_collate_key_for_filename     (const gchar *str,
                                                         gssize len);

Converts a string into a collation key that can be compared with other collation keys produced by the same function using strcmp().

In order to sort filenames correctly, this function treats the dot '.' as a special case. Most dictionary orderings seem to consider it insignificant, thus producing the ordering "event.c" "eventgenerator.c" "event.h" instead of "event.c" "event.h" "eventgenerator.c". Also, we would like to treat numbers intelligently so that "file1" "file10" "file5" is sorted as "file1" "file5" "file10".

Note that this function depends on the current locale.

Since 2.8

g_utf8_to_utf16 ()

gunichar2*          g_utf8_to_utf16                     (const gchar *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to UTF-16. A 0 character will be added to the result after the converted text.

g_utf8_to_ucs4 ()

gunichar*           g_utf8_to_ucs4                      (const gchar *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4. A trailing 0 will be added to the string after the converted text.

g_utf8_to_ucs4_fast ()

gunichar*           g_utf8_to_ucs4_fast                 (const gchar *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_written);

Convert a string from UTF-8 to a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4, assuming valid UTF-8 input. This function is roughly twice as fast as g_utf8_to_ucs4() but does no error checking on the input.

g_utf16_to_ucs4 ()

gunichar*           g_utf16_to_ucs4                     (const gunichar2 *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-16 to UCS-4. The result will be terminated with a 0 character.

g_utf16_to_utf8 ()

gchar*              g_utf16_to_utf8                     (const gunichar2 *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from UTF-16 to UTF-8. The result will be terminated with a 0 byte.

Note that the input is expected to be already in native endianness, an initial byte-order-mark character is not handled specially. g_convert() can be used to convert a byte buffer of UTF-16 data of ambiguous endianess.

g_ucs4_to_utf16 ()

gunichar2*          g_ucs4_to_utf16                     (const gunichar *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from UCS-4 to UTF-16. A 0 character will be added to the result after the converted text.

g_ucs4_to_utf8 ()

gchar*              g_ucs4_to_utf8                      (const gunichar *str,
                                                         glong len,
                                                         glong *items_read,
                                                         glong *items_written,
                                                         GError **error);

Convert a string from a 32-bit fixed width representation as UCS-4. to UTF-8. The result will be terminated with a 0 byte.

g_unichar_to_utf8 ()

gint                g_unichar_to_utf8                   (gunichar c,
                                                         gchar *outbuf);

Converts a single character to UTF-8.