OSF DCE Application Development Guide--Core Components

Writing Internationalized RPC Applications
• cs_byte_to_netcs( )—Converts international character data from a local code set to a
network code set when the cs_byte type has been specified as the local data type in
the .acf file.
• cs_byte_from_netcs( )—Converts international character data from a network code
set to a local code set when the cs_byte type has been specified as the local data type
in the .acf file.
• wchar_t_to_netcs()—Converts international character data from a local code set to
a network code set when the wchar_t data type has been specified as the local data
type in the .acf file.
• wchar_t_from_netcs( )—Converts international character data from a network code
set to a local code set when the wchar_t data type has been specified as the local
data type in the .acf file.
If your application uses either of these data types as the local type, it can use these DCE
RPC code set conversion routines; in order to do so, simply link with the DCE library
when compiling your application. Refer to the cs_byte_*(3rpc) and wchar_t_*(3rpc)
reference pages for a description of the cs_byte_ and wchar_t_ routine signatures and
functions.
Applications that use data types other than cs_byte or wchar_t as their local data types
will need to provide their own code set conversion routines. User-provided code set
conversion routines must follow the same signature as the DCE RPC-provided code set
conversion routines. See the cs_byte_*(3rpc) and wchar_t_*(3rpc) reference pages for
a description of the cs_byte_ and wchar_t_ routine signatures and functions.
The DCE code set conversion routines depend upon the presence of the XPG4 iconv
code set conversion facility in the underlying operating system platform. The iconv
facility consists of the following routines:
• iconv_open( )—Code conversion allocation function; returns a conversion descriptor
that describes a conversion from the code set specified in one string pointer argument
to the code set specified in another string pointer argument.
• iconv( )—Code conversion function; converts the sequence of characters from one
code set into a sequence of corresponding characters in another code set.
• iconv_close()—Code conversion deallocation function; deallocates the conversion
descriptor and all associated resources allocated by the iconv_open( ) function.
Note that the iconv facility identifies a code set by a string name. This string name is the
name that the local platform uses to refer to the code set. However, all of the stub
support routines for automatic code set conversion use the unique identifier assigned to
the code set in the code set registry to identify a code set. Before the DCE code set
conversion routines can invoke the iconv facility, they must access the code set registry
to retrieve the platform-specific string names associated with the local and network code
set identifiers.
The DCE code set conversion routines use the dce_cs_loc_to_rgy( ) and
dce_cs_rgy_to_loc() routines to access the code set registry and translate between code
set string names and their corresponding unique identifiers. The OSF DCE Application
Development Reference provides a description of these routines’ signatures and
functions; developers who are writing their own code set conversion routines and
who are using the iconv facility for conversion may want to use these DCE routines to
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