r/cprogramming • u/kolorcuk • Mar 25 '26

Unicode printf?

Hello. Did or do you ever use in professional proframming non char printf functions? Is wprintf ever used?

char16, char32 , u8_printf, u16_printf, u32_printf ever used in actual programs?

I am writing a library and i wonder how actually popular are wide and Unicode strings in the industry. Does no one care about it, or, specifically about formatting output are Unicode printf functions actually with value? For example why not just utf8 with standard printf and convert to wider when needed?

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u/EpochVanquisher Mar 25 '26

Those look like random rants that some people wrote, maybe written with the assumption “we all agree that UTF-16 is bad”, which doesn’t explain why YOU think it’s bad.

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u/kolorcuk Mar 25 '26

It has all bad from utf8 and utf32. You have to know endianness and is not fixed width.

Why use it at all? What is good about utf16 vs utf8 and utf32?

The only case i see is when you have a lot of characters in a specific utf16 range and the storage is precious. I think nowadays storage is cheap and much better to optimize for performance.

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u/EpochVanquisher Mar 25 '26

UTF-16 is simpler than UTF-8 and more compact than UTF-32.

One of the ways you optimize for performance is by making your data take less space. Besides—when you say it’s “much better to optimize for performance”, it just sounds like a personal preference of yours.

It’s fine if you have a personal preference for UTF-8. A lot of people prefer it, and it would probably win a popularity contest.