wcswidth(3)

💖 NAME 💖

wcswidth — bestie, this is the one that tells u how many columns a fixed-size wide-character string is gonna take up ✨

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🌸 LIBRARY 🌸

Standard C library (libc, -lc) 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#define _XOPEN_SOURCE             /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <wchar.h>

int wcswidth(const wchar_t *s, size_t n);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. wcswidth() looks at the wide-character string that s points to and tells u how many columns u need to represent it — but only counting at most n wide characters. like, it's the fixed-size vibe, it stops at n and doesn't peek past it bestie 💅

and listen — if there's a nonprintable wide character somewhere in those characters? bestie it just returns -1. that's it. that's the whole plot. 💀

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🌈 RETURN VALUE 🌈

wcswidth() hands u back the number of column positions for the wide-character string s, truncated to at most length n. that's the whole thing, no cap 👑

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👑 ATTRIBUTES 👑

for the tea on what all these terms even mean, go look at attributes(7) 🫶

• Interface: wcswidth()
• Attribute: Thread safety
• Value: MT-Safe locale

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⭐ STANDARDS ⭐

POSIX.1-2008. periodt.

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🎀 HISTORY 🎀

POSIX.1-2001. yeah she's been around a minute, iconic behavior fr fr

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🍓 NOTES 🍓

the way wcswidth() acts totally depends on the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale 😭 so like, change ur locale, change ur whole answer. iykyk 💜

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• iswprint(3)
• wcwidth(3)

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mwah 💋 that's the whole page bestie — from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08, and it's wcswidth(3) if u ever gotta look her up again 🫶✨