13.1.4 wstrings

The wstring data type represents a sequence of wchar, except the wide character NULL. The type wstring is similar to that of type string, except that its element type is wchar instead of char. The actual length of a wstring is set at run time and, if the bounded form is used, must be less than or equal to the bound.

The syntax for defining a wstring is:

<wide_string_type> ::= “wstring” “<” <positive_int_const> “>”
| “wstring

A code example for wstring is:

CORBA::WString_var v_upper = CORBA::wstring_dup(wmixed);

wstring types are built in types just like unsigned long, char, string, double, etc. They can be used directly as parameters, typedef'd, used to construct structs, sequences, unions, arrays, and so forth.

Note:

The wchar and wstring data types enable users to interact with computers in their native written language. Some languages, such as Japanese and Chinese, have thousands of unique characters. These character sets do not fit within a byte. A number of schemes have been used to support multi-byte character sets, but they have proved to be unwieldy to use. Wide characters and wide strings make it easier to interact with this kind of complexity.