Version: 3.1.0
wxString Class Reference

#include <wx/string.h>

Detailed Description

String class for passing textual data to or receiving it from wxWidgets.

Note
While the use of wxString is unavoidable in wxWidgets program, you are encouraged to use the standard string classes std::string or std::wstring in your applications and convert them to and from wxString only when interacting with wxWidgets.

wxString is a class representing a Unicode character string but with methods taking or returning both wchar_t wide characters and wchar_t* wide strings and traditional char characters and char* strings. The dual nature of wxString API makes it simple to use in all cases and, importantly, allows the code written for either ANSI or Unicode builds of the previous wxWidgets versions to compile and work correctly with the single unified Unicode build of wxWidgets 3.0. It is also mostly transparent when using wxString with the few exceptions described below.

API overview

wxString tries to be similar to both std::string and std::wstring and can mostly be used as either class. It provides practically all of the methods of these classes, which behave exactly the same as in the standard C++, and so are not documented here (please see any standard library documentation, for example http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string for more details).

In addition to these standard methods, wxString adds functions dealing with the conversions between different string encodings, described below, as well as many extra helpers such as functions for formatted output (Printf(), Format(), ...), case conversion (MakeUpper(), Capitalize(), ...) and various others (Trim(), StartsWith(), Matches(), ...). All of the non-standard methods follow wxWidgets "CamelCase" naming convention and are documented here.

Notice that some wxString methods exist in several versions for compatibility reasons. For example all of length(), Length() and Len() are provided. In such cases it is recommended to use the standard string-like method, i.e. length() in this case.

Converting to and from wxString

wxString can be created from:

Notice that many of the constructors are implicit, meaning that you don't even need to write them at all to pass the existing string to some wxWidgets function taking a wxString.

Similarly, wxString can be converted to:

  • ASCII string using wxString::ToAscii(). This is a potentially destructive operation as all non-ASCII string characters are replaced with a placeholder character.
  • String in the current locale encoding implicitly or using c_str() or mb_str() methods. This is a potentially destructive operation as an empty string is returned if the conversion fails.
  • String in UTF-8 encoding using wxString::utf8_str().
  • String in any given encoding using mb_str() with the appropriate wxMBConv object. This is also a potentially destructive operation.
  • Standard std::string using wxString::ToStdString(). The contents of the returned string use the current locale encoding, so this conversion is potentially destructive as well.
  • Wide C string using wxString::wc_str().
  • Standard std::wstring using wxString::ToStdWstring().
Note
If you built wxWidgets with wxUSE_STL set to 1, the implicit conversions to both narrow and wide C strings are disabled and replaced with implicit conversions to std::string and std::wstring.

Please notice that the conversions marked as "potentially destructive" above can result in loss of data if their result is not checked, so you need to verify that converting the contents of a non-empty Unicode string to a non-UTF-8 multibyte encoding results in non-empty string. The simplest and best way to ensure that the conversion never fails is to always use UTF-8.

Traps for the unwary

As mentioned above, wxString tries to be compatible with both narrow and wide standard string classes and mostly does it transparently, but there are some exceptions.

String element access

Some problems are caused by wxString::operator[]() which returns an object of a special proxy class allowing to assign either a simple char or a wchar_t to the given index. Because of this, the return type of this operator is neither char nor wchar_t nor a reference to one of these types but wxUniCharRef which is not a primitive type and hence can't be used in the switch statement. So the following code does not compile

wxString s(...);
switch ( s[n] ) {
case 'A':
...
break;
}

and you need to use

switch ( s[n].GetValue() ) {
...
}

instead. Alternatively, you can use an explicit cast:

switch ( static_cast<char>(s[n]) ) {
...
}

but notice that this will result in an assert failure if the character at the given position is not representable as a single char in the current encoding, so you may want to cast to int instead if non-ASCII values can be used.

Another consequence of this unusual return type arises when it is used with template deduction or C++11 auto keyword. Unlike with the normal references which are deduced to be of the referenced type, the deduced type for wxUniCharRef is wxUniCharRef itself. This results in potentially unexpected behaviour, for example:

wxString s("abc");
auto c = s[0];
c = 'x'; // Modifies the string!
wxASSERT( s == "xbc" );

Due to this, either explicitly specify the variable type:

int c = s[0];
c = 'x'; // Doesn't modify the string any more.
wxASSERT( s == "abc" );

or explicitly convert the return value:

auto c = s[0].GetValue();
c = 'x'; // Doesn't modify the string neither.
wxASSERT( s == "abc" );

Conversion to C string

A different class of problems happens due to the dual nature of the return value of wxString::c_str() method, which is also used for implicit conversions. The result of calls to this method is convertible to either narrow char* string or wide wchar_t* string and so, again, has neither the former nor the latter type. Usually, the correct type will be chosen depending on how you use the result but sometimes the compiler can't choose it because of an ambiguity, e.g.:

// Some non-wxWidgets functions existing for both narrow and wide
// strings:
void dump_text(const char* text); // Version (1)
void dump_text(const wchar_t* text); // Version (2)
wxString s(...);
dump_text(s); // ERROR: ambiguity.
dump_text(s.c_str()); // ERROR: still ambiguous.

In this case you need to explicitly convert to the type that you need to use or use a different, non-ambiguous, conversion function (which is usually the best choice):

dump_text(static_cast<const char*>(s)); // OK, calls (1)
dump_text(static_cast<const wchar_t*>(s.c_str())); // OK, calls (2)
dump_text(s.mb_str()); // OK, calls (1)
dump_text(s.wc_str()); // OK, calls (2)
dump_text(s.wx_str()); // OK, calls ???

Using wxString with vararg functions

A special subclass of the problems arising due to the polymorphic nature of wxString::c_str() result type happens when using functions taking an arbitrary number of arguments, such as the standard printf(). Due to the rules of the C++ language, the types for the "variable" arguments of such functions are not specified and hence the compiler cannot convert wxString objects, or the objects returned by wxString::c_str(), to these unknown types automatically. Hence neither wxString objects nor the results of most of the conversion functions can be passed as vararg arguments:

// ALL EXAMPLES HERE DO NOT WORK, DO NOT USE THEM!
printf("Don't do this: %s", s);
printf("Don't do that: %s", s.c_str());
printf("Nor even this: %s", s.mb_str());
wprintf("And even not always this: %s", s.wc_str());

Instead you need to either explicitly cast to the needed type:

// These examples work but are not the best solution, see below.
printf("You can do this: %s", static_cast<const char*>(s));
printf("Or this: %s", static_cast<const char*>(s.c_str()));
printf("And this: %s", static_cast<const char*>(s.mb_str()));
wprintf("Or this: %s", static_cast<const wchar_t*>(s.wc_str()));

But a better solution is to use wxWidgets-provided functions, if possible, as is the case for printf family of functions:

// This is the recommended way.
wxPrintf("You can do just this: %s", s);
wxPrintf("And this (but it is redundant): %s", s.c_str());
wxPrintf("And this (not using Unicode): %s", s.mb_str());
wxPrintf("And this (always Unicode): %s", s.wc_str());

Notice that wxPrintf() replaces both printf() and wprintf() and accepts wxString objects, results of c_str() calls but also char* and wchar_t* strings directly.

wxWidgets provides wx-prefixed equivalents to all the standard vararg functions and a few more, notably wxString::Format(), wxLogMessage(), wxLogError() and other log functions. But if you can't use one of those functions and need to pass wxString objects to non-wx vararg functions, you need to use the explicit casts as explained above.

Performance characteristics

wxString uses std::basic_string internally to store its content (unless this is not supported by the compiler or disabled specifically when building wxWidgets) and it therefore inherits many features from std::basic_string. In particular, most modern implementations of std::basic_string are thread-safe and don't use reference counting (making copying large strings potentially expensive) and so wxString has the same characteristics.

By default, wxString uses std::basic_string specialized for the platform-dependent wchar_t type, meaning that it is not memory-efficient for ASCII strings, especially under Unix platforms where every ASCII character, normally fitting in a byte, is represented by a 4 byte wchar_t.

It is possible to build wxWidgets with wxUSE_UNICODE_UTF8 set to 1 in which case an UTF-8-encoded string representation is stored in std::basic_string specialized for char, i.e. the usual std::string. In this case the memory efficiency problem mentioned above doesn't arise but run-time performance of many wxString methods changes dramatically, in particular accessing the N-th character of the string becomes an operation taking O(N) time instead of O(1), i.e. constant, time by default. Thus, if you do use this so called UTF-8 build, you should avoid using indices to access the strings whenever possible and use the iterators instead. As an example, traversing the string using iterators is an O(N), where N is the string length, operation in both the normal ("wchar_t") and UTF-8 builds but doing it using indices becomes O(N^2) in UTF-8 case meaning that simply checking every character of a reasonably long (e.g. a couple of millions elements) string can take an unreasonably long time.

However, if you do use iterators, UTF-8 build can be a better choice than the default build, especially for the memory-constrained embedded systems. Notice also that GTK+ and DirectFB use UTF-8 internally, so using this build not only saves memory for ASCII strings but also avoids conversions between wxWidgets and the underlying toolkit.

Index of the member groups

Links for quick access to the various categories of wxString functions:

Library:  wxBase
Category:  Data Structures

Predefined objects/pointers: wxEmptyString

See Also
wxString Overview, Unicode Support in wxWidgets, String-related functions, wxUString, wxCharBuffer, wxUniChar, wxStringTokenizer, wxStringBuffer, wxStringBufferLength

Public Types

Standard types

Types used with wxString.

typedef wxUniChar value_type
 
typedef wxUniChar char_type
 
typedef wxUniCharRef reference
 
typedef wxCharpointer
 
typedef const wxCharconst_pointer
 
typedef size_t size_type
 
typedef wxUniChar const_reference
 

Public Member Functions

Constructors and assignment operators

A string may be constructed either from a C string, (some number of copies of) a single character or a wide (Unicode) string.

For all constructors (except the default which creates an empty string) there is also a corresponding assignment operator.

See also the assign() STL-like function.

 wxString ()
 Default constructor.
 
 wxString (const wxString &stringSrc)
 Creates a string from another string.
 
 wxString (wxUniChar ch, size_t nRepeat=1)
 Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.
 
 wxString (wxUniCharRef ch, size_t nRepeat=1)
 Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.
 
 wxString (char ch, size_t nRepeat=1)
 Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch converted to Unicode using the current locale encoding.
 
 wxString (wchar_t ch, size_t nRepeat=1)
 Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.
 
 wxString (const char *psz)
 Constructs a string from the string literal psz using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).
 
 wxString (const char *psz, const wxMBConv &conv)
 Constructs a string from the string literal psz using conv to convert it Unicode.
 
 wxString (const char *psz, size_t nLength)
 Constructs a string from the first nLength character of the string literal psz using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).
 
 wxString (const char *psz, const wxMBConv &conv, size_t nLength)
 Constructs a string from the first nLength character of the string literal psz using conv to convert it Unicode.
 
 wxString (const wchar_t *pwz)
 Constructs a string from the string literal pwz.
 
 wxString (const wchar_t *pwz, size_t nLength)
 Constructs a string from the first nLength characters of the string literal pwz.
 
 wxString (const wxCharBuffer &buf)
 Constructs a string from buf using the using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode.
 
 wxString (const wxWCharBuffer &buf)
 Constructs a string from buf.
 
 wxString (const std::string &str)
 Constructs a string from str using the using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).
 
 wxString (const std::wstring &str)
 Constructs a string from str.
 
 ~wxString ()
 String destructor.
 
wxString operator= (const wxString &str)
 Assignment: see the relative wxString constructor.
 
wxString operator= (wxUniChar c)
 Assignment: see the relative wxString constructor.
 
String length

These functions return the string length and/or check whether the string is empty.

See also the length(), size() or empty() STL-like functions.

size_t Len () const
 Returns the length of the string.
 
size_t Length () const
 Returns the length of the string (same as Len).
 
bool IsEmpty () const
 Returns true if the string is empty.
 
bool IsNull () const
 Returns true if the string is empty (same as wxString::IsEmpty).
 
bool operator! () const
 Empty string is false, so !string will only return true if the string is empty.
 
Character access

Many functions below take a character index in the string.

As with C strings and arrays, the indices start from 0, so the first character of a string is string[0]. An attempt to access a character beyond the end of the string (which may even be 0 if the string is empty) will provoke an assert failure in debug builds, but no checks are done in release builds.

wxUniChar GetChar (size_t n) const
 Returns the character at position n (read-only).
 
const wxCStrData GetData () const
 wxWidgets compatibility conversion.
 
wxUniCharRef GetWritableChar (size_t n)
 Returns a reference to the character at position n.
 
wxStringCharTypeGetWriteBuf (size_t len)
 Returns a writable buffer of at least len bytes.
 
void UngetWriteBuf ()
 Puts the string back into a reasonable state (in which it can be used normally), after GetWriteBuf() was called.
 
void UngetWriteBuf (size_t len)
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
void SetChar (size_t n, wxUniChar ch)
 Sets the character at position n.
 
wxUniChar Last () const
 Returns the last character.
 
wxUniCharRef Last ()
 Returns a reference to the last character (writable).
 
wxUniChar operator[] (size_t i) const
 Returns the i-th character of the string.
 
wxUniCharRef operator[] (size_t i)
 Returns a writable reference to the i-th character of the string.
 
Conversions

This section contains both implicit and explicit conversions to C style strings.

Although implicit conversion is quite convenient, you are advised to use wc_str() for the sake of clarity.

wxCStrData c_str () const
 Returns a lightweight intermediate class which is in turn implicitly convertible to both const char* and to const wchar_t*.
 
wxWritableCharBuffer char_str (const wxMBConv &conv=wxConvLibc) const
 Returns an object with string data that is implicitly convertible to char* pointer.
 
template<typename T >
wxCharTypeBuffer< T > tchar_str (size_t *len=NULL) const
 Returns buffer of the specified type containing the string data.
 
const wchar_t * fn_str () const
 Returns a string representation suitable for passing to OS' functions for file handling.
 
const char * fn_str () const
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
const wxCharBuffer fn_str () const
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
const wxCharBuffer mb_str (const wxMBConv &conv=wxConvLibc) const
 Returns the multibyte (C string) representation of the string using conv's wxMBConv::cWC2MB method and returns wxCharBuffer.
 
const wxScopedCharBuffer utf8_str () const
 Converts the strings contents to UTF-8 and returns it either as a temporary wxCharBuffer object or as a pointer to the internal string contents in UTF-8 build.
 
const wchar_t * wc_str () const
 Converts the strings contents to the wide character representation and returns it as a temporary wxWCharBuffer object (Unix and OS X) or returns a pointer to the internal string contents in wide character mode (Windows).
 
const wxWCharBuffer wc_str () const
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
wxWritableWCharBuffer wchar_str () const
 Returns an object with string data that is implicitly convertible to char* pointer.
 
const wxStringCharTypewx_str () const
 Explicit conversion to C string in the internal representation (either wchar_t* or UTF-8-encoded char*, depending on the build).
 
const wxScopedCharBuffer To8BitData () const
 Converts the string to an 8-bit string in ISO-8859-1 encoding in the form of a wxCharBuffer (Unicode builds only).
 
const char * ToAscii () const
 Converts the string to an ASCII, 7-bit string in the form of a wxCharBuffer (Unicode builds only) or a C string (ANSI builds).
 
const wxCharBuffer ToAscii () const
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
std::string ToStdString () const
 Return the string as an std::string in current locale encoding.
 
std::wstring ToStdWstring () const
 Return the string as an std::wstring.
 
const wxScopedCharBuffer ToUTF8 () const
 Same as utf8_str().
 
Concatenation

Almost anything may be concatenated (appended to) with a string!

Note that the various operator<<() overloads work as C++ stream insertion operators. They insert the given value into the string. Precision and format cannot be set using them. Use Printf() instead.

See also the insert() and append() STL-like functions.

wxStringAppend (const char *psz)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringAppend (const wchar_t *pwz)
 Appends the wide string literal pwz.
 
wxStringAppend (const char *psz, size_t nLen)
 Appends the string literal psz with max length nLen.
 
wxStringAppend (const wchar_t *pwz, size_t nLen)
 Appends the wide string literal psz with max length nLen.
 
wxStringAppend (const wxString &s)
 Appends the string s.
 
wxStringAppend (wxUniChar ch, size_t count=1u)
 Appends the character ch count times.
 
wxStringPrepend (const wxString &str)
 Prepends str to this string, returning a reference to this string.
 
wxString operator+ (const wxString &x, const wxString &y)
 Concatenation: returns a new string equal to the concatenation of the operands.
 
wxString operator+ (const wxString &x, wxUniChar y)
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const wxString &s)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const char *psz)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const wchar_t *pwz)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const wxCStrData &psz)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (char ch)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (unsigned char ch)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (wchar_t ch)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const wxCharBuffer &s)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (const wxWCharBuffer &s)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (wxUniChar ch)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (wxUniCharRef ch)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (unsigned int ui)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (long l)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (unsigned long ul)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (wxLongLong_t ll)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (wxULongLong_t ul)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (float f)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
wxStringoperator<< (double d)
 Appends the string literal psz.
 
void operator+= (const wxString &str)
 Concatenation in place: the argument is appended to the string.
 
void operator+= (wxUniChar c)
 This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.
 
Comparison

The default comparison function Cmp() is case-sensitive and so is the default version of IsSameAs().

For case insensitive comparisons you should use CmpNoCase() or give a second parameter to IsSameAs(). This last function is maybe more convenient if only equality of the strings matters because it returns a boolean true value if the strings are the same and not 0 (which is usually false in C) as Cmp() does.

Matches() is a poor man's regular expression matcher: it only understands '*' and '?' metacharacters in the sense of DOS command line interpreter.

StartsWith() is helpful when parsing a line of text which should start with some predefined prefix and is more efficient than doing direct string comparison as you would also have to precalculate the length of the prefix.

See also the compare() STL-like function.

int Cmp (const wxString &s) const
 Case-sensitive comparison.
 
int CmpNoCase (const wxString &s) const
 Case-insensitive comparison.
 
bool IsSameAs (const wxString &s, bool caseSensitive=true) const
 Test whether the string is equal to another string s.
 
bool IsSameAs (wxUniChar ch, bool caseSensitive=true) const
 Test whether the string is equal to the single character ch.
 
bool Matches (const wxString &mask) const
 Returns true if the string contents matches a mask containing '*' and '?'.
 
bool StartsWith (const wxString &prefix, wxString *rest=NULL) const
 This function can be used to test if the string starts with the specified prefix.
 
bool EndsWith (const wxString &suffix, wxString *rest=NULL) const
 This function can be used to test if the string ends with the specified suffix.
 
Substring extraction

These functions allow you to extract a substring from the string.

The original string is not modified and the function returns the extracted substring.

See also the at() and the substr() STL-like functions.

wxString Mid (size_t first, size_t nCount=wxString::npos) const
 Returns a substring starting at first, with length count, or the rest of the string if count is the default value.
 
wxString SubString (size_t from, size_t to) const
 Returns the part of the string between the indices from and to inclusive.
 
wxString operator() (size_t start, size_t len) const
 Same as Mid() (substring extraction).
 
wxString Left (size_t count) const
 Returns the first count characters of the string.
 
wxString Right (size_t count) const
 Returns the last count characters.
 
wxString AfterFirst (wxUniChar ch) const
 Gets all the characters after the first occurrence of ch.
 
wxString AfterLast (wxUniChar ch) const
 Gets all the characters after the last occurrence of ch.
 
wxString BeforeFirst (wxUniChar ch, wxString *rest=NULL) const
 Gets all characters before the first occurrence of ch.
 
wxString BeforeLast (wxUniChar ch, wxString *rest=NULL) const
 Gets all characters before the last occurrence of ch.
 
Case conversion

The MakeXXX() variants modify the string in place, while the other functions return a new string which contains the original text converted to the upper or lower case and leave the original string unchanged.

wxString Capitalize () const
 Return the copy of the string with the first string character in the upper case and the subsequent ones in the lower case.
 
wxString Lower () const
 Returns this string converted to the lower case.
 
void LowerCase ()
 Same as MakeLower.
 
wxStringMakeCapitalized ()
 Converts the first characters of the string to the upper case and all the subsequent ones to the lower case and returns the result.
 
wxStringMakeLower ()
 Converts all characters to lower case and returns the reference to the modified string.
 
wxStringMakeUpper ()
 Converts all characters to upper case and returns the reference to the modified string.
 
wxString Upper () const
 Returns this string converted to upper case.
 
void UpperCase ()
 The same as MakeUpper().
 
Searching and replacing

These functions replace the standard strchr() and strstr() functions.

See also the find(), rfind(), replace() STL-like functions.

int Find (wxUniChar ch, bool fromEnd=false) const
 Searches for the given character ch.
 
int Find (const wxString &sub) const
 Searches for the given string sub.
 
int First (wxUniChar ch) const
 Same as Find().
 
int First (const wxString &str) const
 Same as Find().
 
size_t Replace (const wxString &strOld, const wxString &strNew, bool replaceAll=true)
 Replace first (or all) occurrences of substring with another one.
 
Conversion to numbers

The string provides functions for conversion to signed and unsigned integer and floating point numbers.

All functions take a pointer to the variable to put the numeric value in and return true if the entire string could be converted to a number. Notice if there is a valid number in the beginning of the string, it is returned in the output parameter even if the function returns false because there is more text following it.

bool ToDouble (double *val) const
 Attempts to convert the string to a floating point number.
 
bool ToCDouble (double *val) const
 Variant of ToDouble() always working in "C" locale.
 
bool ToLong (long *val, int base=10) const
 Attempts to convert the string to a signed integer in base base.
 
bool ToCLong (long *val, int base=10) const
 Variant of ToLong() always working in "C" locale.
 
bool ToLongLong (wxLongLong_t *val, int base=10) const
 This is exactly the same as ToLong() but works with 64 bit integer numbers.
 
bool ToULong (unsigned long *val, int base=10) const
 Attempts to convert the string to an unsigned integer in base base.
 
bool ToCULong (unsigned long *val, int base=10) const
 Variant of ToULong() always working in "C" locale.
 
bool ToULongLong (wxULongLong_t *val, int base=10) const
 This is exactly the same as ToULong() but works with 64 bit integer numbers.
 
Formatting and printing

Both formatted versions (Printf/() and stream-like insertion operators exist (for basic types only).

See also the static Format() and FormatV() functions.

int Printf (const wxString &pszFormat,...)
 Similar to the standard function sprintf().
 
int PrintfV (const wxString &pszFormat, va_list argPtr)
 Similar to vprintf.
 
Memory management

The following are "advanced" functions and they will be needed rarely.

Alloc() and Shrink() are only interesting for optimization purposes. wxStringBuffer and wxStringBufferLength classes may be very useful when working with some external API which requires the caller to provide a writable buffer.

See also the reserve() and resize() STL-like functions.

bool Alloc (size_t nLen)
 Preallocate enough space for wxString to store nLen characters.
 
bool Shrink ()
 Minimizes the string's memory.
 
wxString Clone () const
 Returns a deep copy of the string.
 
void Clear ()
 Empties the string and frees memory occupied by it.
 
Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous other string functions.

bool Contains (const wxString &str) const
 Returns true if target appears anywhere in wxString; else false.
 
void Empty ()
 Makes the string empty, but doesn't free memory occupied by the string.
 
int Freq (wxUniChar ch) const
 Returns the number of occurrences of ch in the string.
 
bool IsAscii () const
 Returns true if the string contains only ASCII characters.
 
bool IsNumber () const
 Returns true if the string is an integer (with possible sign).
 
bool IsWord () const
 Returns true if the string is a word.
 
wxStringPad (size_t count, wxUniChar chPad= ' ', bool fromRight=true)
 Adds count copies of chPad to the beginning, or to the end of the string (the default).
 
wxStringRemove (size_t pos)
 Removes all characters from the string starting at pos.
 
wxStringRemove (size_t pos, size_t len)
 Removes len characters from the string, starting at pos.
 
wxStringRemoveLast (size_t n=1)
 Removes the last character.
 
wxString Strip (stripType s=trailing) const
 Strip characters at the front and/or end.
 
wxStringTrim (bool fromRight=true)
 Removes white-space (space, tabs, form feed, newline and carriage return) from the left or from the right end of the string (right is default).
 
wxStringTruncate (size_t len)
 Truncate the string to the given length.
 
Iterator interface

These methods return iterators to the beginning or end of the string.

Please see any STL reference (e.g. http://www.cppreference.com/wiki/string/start) for their documentation.

const_iterator begin () const
 
iterator begin ()
 
const_iterator end () const
 
iterator end ()
 
const_reverse_iterator rbegin () const
 
reverse_iterator rbegin ()
 
const_reverse_iterator rend () const
 
reverse_iterator rend ()
 
STL interface

The supported STL functions are listed here.

Please see any STL reference (e.g. http://www.cppreference.com/wiki/string/start) for their documentation.

wxStringappend (const wxString &str, size_t pos, size_t n)
 
wxStringappend (const wxString &str)
 
wxStringappend (const char *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringappend (const wchar_t *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringappend (size_t n, wxUniChar ch)
 
wxStringappend (const_iterator first, const_iterator last)
 
wxStringassign (const wxString &str, size_t pos, size_t n)
 
wxStringassign (const wxString &str)
 
wxStringassign (const char *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringassign (const wchar_t *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringassign (size_t n, wxUniChar ch)
 
wxStringassign (const_iterator first, const_iterator last)
 
wxUniChar at (size_t n) const
 
wxUniCharRef at (size_t n)
 
void clear ()
 
size_type capacity () const
 
int compare (const wxString &str) const
 
int compare (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wxString &str) const
 
int compare (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wxString &str, size_t nStart2, size_t nLen2) const
 
int compare (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const char *sz, size_t nCount=npos) const
 
int compare (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wchar_t *sz, size_t nCount=npos) const
 
wxCStrData data () const
 
bool empty () const
 
wxStringerase (size_type pos=0, size_type n=npos)
 
iterator erase (iterator first, iterator last)
 
iterator erase (iterator first)
 
size_t find (const wxString &str, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find (const char *sz, size_t nStart=0, size_t n=npos) const
 
size_t find (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=0, size_t n=npos) const
 
size_t find (wxUniChar ch, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_first_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_first_of (wxUniChar c, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_last_of (const wxString &str, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_last_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_last_of (wxUniChar c, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (const wxString &str, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_first_not_of (wxUniChar ch, size_t nStart=0) const
 
size_t find_last_not_of (const wxString &str, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_not_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_not_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t find_last_not_of (const char *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
size_t find_last_not_of (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart, size_t n) const
 
wxStringinsert (size_t nPos, const wxString &str)
 
wxStringinsert (size_t nPos, const wxString &str, size_t nStart, size_t n)
 
wxStringinsert (size_t nPos, const char *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringinsert (size_t nPos, const wchar_t *sz, size_t n)
 
wxStringinsert (size_t nPos, size_t n, wxUniChar ch)
 
iterator insert (iterator it, wxUniChar ch)
 
void insert (iterator it, const_iterator first, const_iterator last)
 
void insert (iterator it, size_type n, wxUniChar ch)
 
size_t length () const
 
size_type max_size () const
 
void reserve (size_t sz)
 
void resize (size_t nSize, wxUniChar ch= '\0')
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wxString &str)
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, size_t nCount, wxUniChar ch)
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wxString &str, size_t nStart2, size_t nLen2)
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const char *sz, size_t nCount)
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wchar_t *sz, size_t nCount)
 
wxStringreplace (size_t nStart, size_t nLen, const wxString &s, size_t nCount)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const wxString &s)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const char *s, size_type n)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const wchar_t *s, size_type n)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, size_type n, wxUniChar ch)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const_iterator first1, const_iterator last1)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const char *first1, const char *last1)
 
wxStringreplace (iterator first, iterator last, const wchar_t *first1, const wchar_t *last1)
 
size_t rfind (const wxString &str, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_t rfind (const char *sz, size_t nStart=npos, size_t n=npos) const
 
size_t rfind (const wchar_t *sz, size_t nStart=npos, size_t n=npos) const
 
size_t rfind (wxUniChar ch, size_t nStart=npos) const
 
size_type size () const
 
wxString substr (size_t nStart=0, size_t nLen=npos) const
 
void swap (wxString &str)
 

Static Public Member Functions

static wxString Format (const wxString &format,...)
 This static function returns the string containing the result of calling Printf() with the passed parameters on it.
 
static wxString FormatV (const wxString &format, va_list argptr)
 This static function returns the string containing the result of calling PrintfV() with the passed parameters on it.
 
static wxString FromCDouble (double val, int precision=-1)
 Returns a string with the textual representation of the number in C locale.
 
static wxString FromDouble (double val, int precision=-1)
 Returns a string with the textual representation of the number.
 
static wxString From8BitData (const char *buf, size_t len)
 Converts given buffer of binary data from 8-bit string to wxString.
 
static wxString From8BitData (const char *buf)
 Converts given buffer of binary data from 8-bit string to wxString.
 
static wxString FromAscii (const char *s)
 Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.
 
static wxString FromAscii (const unsigned char *s)
 Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.
 
static wxString FromAscii (const char *s, size_t len)
 Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.
 
static wxString FromAscii (const unsigned char *s, size_t len)
 Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.
 
static wxString FromAscii (char c)
 Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.
 
static wxString FromUTF8 (const char *s)
 Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString.
 
static wxString FromUTF8 (const char *s, size_t len)
 Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString.
 
static wxString FromUTF8Unchecked (const char *s)
 Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString without checking its validity.
 
static wxString FromUTF8Unchecked (const char *s, size_t len)
 Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString without checking its validity.
 

Static Public Attributes

static const size_t npos
 An 'invalid' value for string index.
 

Member Typedef Documentation

typedef size_t wxString::size_type

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

wxString::wxString ( )

Default constructor.

wxString::wxString ( const wxString stringSrc)

Creates a string from another string.

Just increases the ref count by 1.

wxString::wxString ( wxUniChar  ch,
size_t  nRepeat = 1 
)

Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.

wxString::wxString ( wxUniCharRef  ch,
size_t  nRepeat = 1 
)

Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.

wxString::wxString ( char  ch,
size_t  nRepeat = 1 
)

Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch converted to Unicode using the current locale encoding.

wxString::wxString ( wchar_t  ch,
size_t  nRepeat = 1 
)

Construct a string consisting of nRepeat copies of ch.

wxString::wxString ( const char *  psz)

Constructs a string from the string literal psz using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).

wxString::wxString ( const char *  psz,
const wxMBConv conv 
)

Constructs a string from the string literal psz using conv to convert it Unicode.

wxString::wxString ( const char *  psz,
size_t  nLength 
)

Constructs a string from the first nLength character of the string literal psz using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).

wxString::wxString ( const char *  psz,
const wxMBConv conv,
size_t  nLength 
)

Constructs a string from the first nLength character of the string literal psz using conv to convert it Unicode.

wxString::wxString ( const wchar_t *  pwz)

Constructs a string from the string literal pwz.

wxString::wxString ( const wchar_t *  pwz,
size_t  nLength 
)

Constructs a string from the first nLength characters of the string literal pwz.

wxString::wxString ( const wxCharBuffer buf)

Constructs a string from buf using the using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode.

wxString::wxString ( const wxWCharBuffer buf)

Constructs a string from buf.

wxString::wxString ( const std::string &  str)

Constructs a string from str using the using the current locale encoding to convert it to Unicode (wxConvLibc).

See Also
ToStdString()
wxString::wxString ( const std::wstring &  str)

Constructs a string from str.

See Also
ToStdWstring()
wxString::~wxString ( )

String destructor.

Note that this is not virtual, so wxString must not be inherited from.

Member Function Documentation

wxString wxString::AfterFirst ( wxUniChar  ch) const

Gets all the characters after the first occurrence of ch.

Returns the empty string if ch is not found.

wxString wxString::AfterLast ( wxUniChar  ch) const

Gets all the characters after the last occurrence of ch.

Returns the whole string if ch is not found.

bool wxString::Alloc ( size_t  nLen)

Preallocate enough space for wxString to store nLen characters.

Please note that this method does the same thing as the standard reserve() one and shouldn't be used in new code.

This function may be used to increase speed when the string is constructed by repeated concatenation as in

// delete all vowels from the string
wxString DeleteAllVowels(const wxString& original)
{
wxString result;
size_t len = original.length();
result.Alloc(len);
for ( size_t n = 0; n < len; n++ )
{
if ( strchr("aeuio", tolower(original[n])) == NULL )
result += original[n];
}
return result;
}

because it will avoid the need to reallocate string memory many times (in case of long strings). Note that it does not set the maximal length of a string – it will still expand if more than nLen characters are stored in it. Also, it does not truncate the existing string (use Truncate() for this) even if its current length is greater than nLen.

Returns
true if memory was successfully allocated, false otherwise.
wxString& wxString::Append ( const char *  psz)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::Append ( const wchar_t *  pwz)

Appends the wide string literal pwz.

wxString& wxString::Append ( const char *  psz,
size_t  nLen 
)

Appends the string literal psz with max length nLen.

wxString& wxString::Append ( const wchar_t *  pwz,
size_t  nLen 
)

Appends the wide string literal psz with max length nLen.

wxString& wxString::Append ( const wxString s)

Appends the string s.

wxString& wxString::Append ( wxUniChar  ch,
size_t  count = 1u 
)

Appends the character ch count times.

wxString& wxString::append ( const wxString str,
size_t  pos,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::append ( const wxString str)
wxString& wxString::append ( const char *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::append ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::append ( size_t  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
wxString& wxString::append ( const_iterator  first,
const_iterator  last 
)
wxString& wxString::assign ( const wxString str,
size_t  pos,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::assign ( const wxString str)
wxString& wxString::assign ( const char *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::assign ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::assign ( size_t  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
wxString& wxString::assign ( const_iterator  first,
const_iterator  last 
)
wxUniChar wxString::at ( size_t  n) const
wxUniCharRef wxString::at ( size_t  n)
wxString wxString::BeforeFirst ( wxUniChar  ch,
wxString rest = NULL 
) const

Gets all characters before the first occurrence of ch.

Returns the whole string if ch is not found.

Parameters
chThe character to look for.
restFilled with the part of the string following the first occurrence of ch or cleared if it was not found. The same string is returned by AfterFirst() but it is more efficient to use this output parameter if both the "before" and "after" parts are needed than calling both functions one after the other. This parameter is available in wxWidgets version 2.9.2 and later only.
Returns
Part of the string before the first occurrence of ch.
wxString wxString::BeforeLast ( wxUniChar  ch,
wxString rest = NULL 
) const

Gets all characters before the last occurrence of ch.

Returns the empty string if ch is not found.

Parameters
chThe character to look for.
restFilled with the part of the string following the last occurrence of ch or the copy of this string if it was not found. The same string is returned by AfterLast() but it is more efficient to use this output parameter if both the "before" and "after" parts are needed than calling both functions one after the other. This parameter is available in wxWidgets version 2.9.2 and later only.
Returns
Part of the string before the last occurrence of ch.
const_iterator wxString::begin ( ) const
iterator wxString::begin ( )
wxCStrData wxString::c_str ( ) const

Returns a lightweight intermediate class which is in turn implicitly convertible to both const char* and to const wchar_t*.

Given this ambiguity it is mostly better to use wc_str(), mb_str() or utf8_str() instead.

Please see the Unicode Support in wxWidgets for more information about it.

Note that the returned value is not convertible to char* or wchar_t*, use char_str() or wchar_str() if you need to pass string value to a function expecting non-const pointer.

See Also
wc_str(), utf8_str(), c_str(), mb_str(), fn_str()
size_type wxString::capacity ( ) const
wxString wxString::Capitalize ( ) const

Return the copy of the string with the first string character in the upper case and the subsequent ones in the lower case.

Since
2.9.0
See Also
MakeCapitalized()
wxWritableCharBuffer wxString::char_str ( const wxMBConv conv = wxConvLibc) const

Returns an object with string data that is implicitly convertible to char* pointer.

Note that any change to the returned buffer is lost and so this function is only usable for passing strings to legacy libraries that don't have const-correct API. Use wxStringBuffer if you want to modify the string.

See Also
c_str()
void wxString::Clear ( )

Empties the string and frees memory occupied by it.

See Also
Empty()
void wxString::clear ( )
wxString wxString::Clone ( ) const

Returns a deep copy of the string.

That is, the returned string is guaranteed to not share data with this string when using reference-counted wxString implementation.

This method is primarily useful for passing strings between threads (because wxString is not thread-safe). Unlike creating a copy using wxString(c_str()), Clone() handles embedded NULs correctly.

Since
2.9.0
int wxString::Cmp ( const wxString s) const

Case-sensitive comparison.

Returns a positive value if the string is greater than the argument, zero if it is equal to it or a negative value if it is less than the argument (same semantics as the standard strcmp() function).

See Also
CmpNoCase(), IsSameAs().
int wxString::CmpNoCase ( const wxString s) const

Case-insensitive comparison.

Returns a positive value if the string is greater than the argument, zero if it is equal to it or a negative value if it is less than the argument (same semantics as the standard strcmp() function).

See Also
Cmp(), IsSameAs().
int wxString::compare ( const wxString str) const
int wxString::compare ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wxString str 
) const
int wxString::compare ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wxString str,
size_t  nStart2,
size_t  nLen2 
) const
int wxString::compare ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const char *  sz,
size_t  nCount = npos 
) const
int wxString::compare ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nCount = npos 
) const
bool wxString::Contains ( const wxString str) const

Returns true if target appears anywhere in wxString; else false.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxCStrData wxString::data ( ) const
void wxString::Empty ( )

Makes the string empty, but doesn't free memory occupied by the string.

See Also
Clear().
bool wxString::empty ( ) const
const_iterator wxString::end ( ) const
iterator wxString::end ( )
bool wxString::EndsWith ( const wxString suffix,
wxString rest = NULL 
) const

This function can be used to test if the string ends with the specified suffix.

If it does, the function will return true and put the beginning of the string before the suffix into rest string if it is not NULL. Otherwise, the function returns false and doesn't modify the rest.

wxString& wxString::erase ( size_type  pos = 0,
size_type  n = npos 
)
iterator wxString::erase ( iterator  first,
iterator  last 
)
iterator wxString::erase ( iterator  first)
int wxString::Find ( wxUniChar  ch,
bool  fromEnd = false 
) const

Searches for the given character ch.

Returns the position or wxNOT_FOUND if not found.

int wxString::Find ( const wxString sub) const

Searches for the given string sub.

Returns the starting position or wxNOT_FOUND if not found.

size_t wxString::find ( const wxString str,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0,
size_t  n = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0,
size_t  n = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find ( wxUniChar  ch,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( const wxString str,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_not_of ( wxUniChar  ch,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_first_of ( wxUniChar  c,
size_t  nStart = 0 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_not_of ( const wxString str,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_not_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_not_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_not_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_not_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( const wxString str,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
) const
size_t wxString::find_last_of ( wxUniChar  c,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
int wxString::First ( wxUniChar  ch) const

Same as Find().

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

int wxString::First ( const wxString str) const

Same as Find().

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

const wchar_t* wxString::fn_str ( ) const

Returns a string representation suitable for passing to OS' functions for file handling.

const char* wxString::fn_str ( ) const

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

const wxCharBuffer wxString::fn_str ( ) const

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

static wxString wxString::Format ( const wxString format,
  ... 
)
static

This static function returns the string containing the result of calling Printf() with the passed parameters on it.

See Also
FormatV(), Printf()
static wxString wxString::FormatV ( const wxString format,
va_list  argptr 
)
static

This static function returns the string containing the result of calling PrintfV() with the passed parameters on it.

See Also
Format(), PrintfV()
int wxString::Freq ( wxUniChar  ch) const

Returns the number of occurrences of ch in the string.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

static wxString wxString::From8BitData ( const char *  buf,
size_t  len 
)
static

Converts given buffer of binary data from 8-bit string to wxString.

In Unicode build, the string is interpreted as being in ISO-8859-1 encoding. The version without len parameter takes NUL-terminated data.

This is a convenience method useful when storing binary data in wxString. It should be used only for that purpose and only in conjunction with To8BitData(). Use mb_str() for conversion of character data to known encoding.

Since
2.8.4
See Also
wxString::To8BitData()
static wxString wxString::From8BitData ( const char *  buf)
static

Converts given buffer of binary data from 8-bit string to wxString.

In Unicode build, the string is interpreted as being in ISO-8859-1 encoding. The version without len parameter takes NUL-terminated data.

This is a convenience method useful when storing binary data in wxString. It should be used only for that purpose and only in conjunction with To8BitData(). Use mb_str() for conversion of character data to known encoding.

Since
2.8.4
See Also
wxString::To8BitData()
static wxString wxString::FromAscii ( const char *  s)
static

Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.

static wxString wxString::FromAscii ( const unsigned char *  s)
static

Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.

static wxString wxString::FromAscii ( const char *  s,
size_t  len 
)
static

Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.

static wxString wxString::FromAscii ( const unsigned char *  s,
size_t  len 
)
static

Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.

static wxString wxString::FromAscii ( char  c)
static

Converts the string or character from an ASCII, 7-bit form to the native wxString representation.

static wxString wxString::FromCDouble ( double  val,
int  precision = -1 
)
static

Returns a string with the textual representation of the number in C locale.

Unlike FromDouble() the string returned by this function always uses the period character as decimal separator, independently of the current locale. Otherwise its behaviour is identical to the other function.

Since
2.9.1
See Also
ToCDouble()
static wxString wxString::FromDouble ( double  val,
int  precision = -1 
)
static

Returns a string with the textual representation of the number.

For the default value of precision, this function behaves as a simple wrapper for

wxString::Format("%g", val)

. If precision is positive (or zero), the %.Nf format is used with the given precision value.

Notice that the string returned by this function uses the decimal separator appropriate for the current locale, e.g. "," and not a period in French locale. Use FromCDouble() if this is unwanted.

Parameters
valThe value to format.
precisionThe number of fractional digits to use in or -1 to use the most appropriate format. This parameter is new in wxWidgets 2.9.2.
Since
2.9.1
See Also
ToDouble()
static wxString wxString::FromUTF8 ( const char *  s)
static

Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString.

If s is not a valid UTF-8 string, an empty string is returned.

Notice that when using UTF-8 wxWidgets build there is a more efficient alternative to this function called FromUTF8Unchecked() which, unlike this one, doesn't check that the input string is valid.

Since
2.8.4
static wxString wxString::FromUTF8 ( const char *  s,
size_t  len 
)
static

Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString.

If s is not a valid UTF-8 string, an empty string is returned.

Notice that when using UTF-8 wxWidgets build there is a more efficient alternative to this function called FromUTF8Unchecked() which, unlike this one, doesn't check that the input string is valid.

Since
2.8.4
static wxString wxString::FromUTF8Unchecked ( const char *  s)
static

Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString without checking its validity.

This method assumes that s is a valid UTF-8 sequence and doesn't do any validation (although an assert failure is triggered in debug builds if the string is invalid). Only use it if you are absolutely sure that s is a correct UTF-8 string (e.g. because it comes from another library using UTF-8) and if the performance matters, otherwise use slower (in UTF-8 build) but safer FromUTF8(). Passing a bad UTF-8 string to this function will result in creating a corrupted wxString and all the subsequent operations on it will be undefined.

Since
2.8.9
static wxString wxString::FromUTF8Unchecked ( const char *  s,
size_t  len 
)
static

Converts C string encoded in UTF-8 to wxString without checking its validity.

This method assumes that s is a valid UTF-8 sequence and doesn't do any validation (although an assert failure is triggered in debug builds if the string is invalid). Only use it if you are absolutely sure that s is a correct UTF-8 string (e.g. because it comes from another library using UTF-8) and if the performance matters, otherwise use slower (in UTF-8 build) but safer FromUTF8(). Passing a bad UTF-8 string to this function will result in creating a corrupted wxString and all the subsequent operations on it will be undefined.

Since
2.8.9
wxUniChar wxString::GetChar ( size_t  n) const

Returns the character at position n (read-only).

const wxCStrData wxString::GetData ( ) const

wxWidgets compatibility conversion.

Same as c_str().

wxUniCharRef wxString::GetWritableChar ( size_t  n)

Returns a reference to the character at position n.

wxStringCharType* wxString::GetWriteBuf ( size_t  len)

Returns a writable buffer of at least len bytes.

It returns a pointer to a new memory block, and the existing data will not be copied. Call UngetWriteBuf() as soon as possible to put the string back into a reasonable state.

This method is deprecated, please use wxStringBuffer or wxStringBufferLength instead.

wxString& wxString::insert ( size_t  nPos,
const wxString str 
)
wxString& wxString::insert ( size_t  nPos,
const wxString str,
size_t  nStart,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::insert ( size_t  nPos,
const char *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::insert ( size_t  nPos,
const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  n 
)
wxString& wxString::insert ( size_t  nPos,
size_t  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
iterator wxString::insert ( iterator  it,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
void wxString::insert ( iterator  it,
const_iterator  first,
const_iterator  last 
)
void wxString::insert ( iterator  it,
size_type  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
bool wxString::IsAscii ( ) const

Returns true if the string contains only ASCII characters.

See wxUniChar::IsAscii for more details.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

bool wxString::IsEmpty ( ) const

Returns true if the string is empty.

bool wxString::IsNull ( ) const

Returns true if the string is empty (same as wxString::IsEmpty).

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

bool wxString::IsNumber ( ) const

Returns true if the string is an integer (with possible sign).

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

bool wxString::IsSameAs ( const wxString s,
bool  caseSensitive = true 
) const

Test whether the string is equal to another string s.

The test is case-sensitive if caseSensitive is true (default) or not if it is false.

Returns
true if the string is equal to the other one, false otherwise.
See Also
Cmp(), CmpNoCase()
bool wxString::IsSameAs ( wxUniChar  ch,
bool  caseSensitive = true 
) const

Test whether the string is equal to the single character ch.

The test is case-sensitive if caseSensitive is true (default) or not if it is false.

Returns
true if the string is equal to this character, false otherwise.
See Also
Cmp(), CmpNoCase()
bool wxString::IsWord ( ) const

Returns true if the string is a word.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxUniChar wxString::Last ( ) const

Returns the last character.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxUniCharRef wxString::Last ( )

Returns a reference to the last character (writable).

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxString wxString::Left ( size_t  count) const

Returns the first count characters of the string.

size_t wxString::Len ( ) const

Returns the length of the string.

size_t wxString::Length ( ) const

Returns the length of the string (same as Len).

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

size_t wxString::length ( ) const
wxString wxString::Lower ( ) const

Returns this string converted to the lower case.

See Also
MakeLower()
void wxString::LowerCase ( )

Same as MakeLower.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxString& wxString::MakeCapitalized ( )

Converts the first characters of the string to the upper case and all the subsequent ones to the lower case and returns the result.

Since
2.9.0
See Also
Capitalize()
wxString& wxString::MakeLower ( )

Converts all characters to lower case and returns the reference to the modified string.

See Also
Lower()
wxString& wxString::MakeUpper ( )

Converts all characters to upper case and returns the reference to the modified string.

See Also
Upper()
bool wxString::Matches ( const wxString mask) const

Returns true if the string contents matches a mask containing '*' and '?'.

size_type wxString::max_size ( ) const
const wxCharBuffer wxString::mb_str ( const wxMBConv conv = wxConvLibc) const

Returns the multibyte (C string) representation of the string using conv's wxMBConv::cWC2MB method and returns wxCharBuffer.

See Also
wc_str(), utf8_str(), c_str(), wxMBConv
wxString wxString::Mid ( size_t  first,
size_t  nCount = wxString::npos 
) const

Returns a substring starting at first, with length count, or the rest of the string if count is the default value.

bool wxString::operator! ( ) const

Empty string is false, so !string will only return true if the string is empty.

See Also
IsEmpty().
wxString wxString::operator() ( size_t  start,
size_t  len 
) const

Same as Mid() (substring extraction).

wxString wxString::operator+ ( const wxString x,
const wxString y 
)

Concatenation: returns a new string equal to the concatenation of the operands.

wxString wxString::operator+ ( const wxString x,
wxUniChar  y 
)

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

void wxString::operator+= ( const wxString str)

Concatenation in place: the argument is appended to the string.

void wxString::operator+= ( wxUniChar  c)

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const wxString s)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const char *  psz)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const wchar_t *  pwz)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const wxCStrData &  psz)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( char  ch)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( unsigned char  ch)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( wchar_t  ch)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const wxCharBuffer s)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( const wxWCharBuffer s)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( wxUniChar  ch)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( wxUniCharRef  ch)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( unsigned int  ui)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( long  l)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( unsigned long  ul)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( wxLongLong_t  ll)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( wxULongLong_t  ul)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( float  f)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString& wxString::operator<< ( double  d)

Appends the string literal psz.

wxString wxString::operator= ( const wxString str)

Assignment: see the relative wxString constructor.

wxString wxString::operator= ( wxUniChar  c)

Assignment: see the relative wxString constructor.

wxUniChar wxString::operator[] ( size_t  i) const

Returns the i-th character of the string.

wxUniCharRef wxString::operator[] ( size_t  i)

Returns a writable reference to the i-th character of the string.

wxString& wxString::Pad ( size_t  count,
wxUniChar  chPad = ' ',
bool  fromRight = true 
)

Adds count copies of chPad to the beginning, or to the end of the string (the default).

Removes spaces from the left or from the right (default).

wxString& wxString::Prepend ( const wxString str)

Prepends str to this string, returning a reference to this string.

int wxString::Printf ( const wxString pszFormat,
  ... 
)

Similar to the standard function sprintf().

Returns the number of characters written, or an integer less than zero on error. Note that if wxUSE_PRINTF_POS_PARAMS is set to 1, then this function supports Unix98-style positional parameters:

str.Printf(wxT("%d %d %d"), 1, 2, 3);
// str now contains "1 2 3"
str.Printf(wxT("%2$d %3$d %1$d"), 1, 2, 3);
// str now contains "2 3 1"
Note
This function will use a safe version of vsprintf() (usually called vsnprintf()) whenever available to always allocate the buffer of correct size. Unfortunately, this function is not available on all platforms and the dangerous vsprintf() will be used then which may lead to buffer overflows.
int wxString::PrintfV ( const wxString pszFormat,
va_list  argPtr 
)

Similar to vprintf.

Returns the number of characters written, or an integer less than zero on error.

const_reverse_iterator wxString::rbegin ( ) const
reverse_iterator wxString::rbegin ( )
wxString& wxString::Remove ( size_t  pos)

Removes all characters from the string starting at pos.

Use Truncate() as a more readable alternative.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxString& wxString::Remove ( size_t  pos,
size_t  len 
)

Removes len characters from the string, starting at pos.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxString& wxString::RemoveLast ( size_t  n = 1)

Removes the last character.

const_reverse_iterator wxString::rend ( ) const
reverse_iterator wxString::rend ( )
size_t wxString::Replace ( const wxString strOld,
const wxString strNew,
bool  replaceAll = true 
)

Replace first (or all) occurrences of substring with another one.

Parameters
strOldThe string to search for replacing.
strNewThe substitution string.
replaceAllIf true a global replace will be done (default), otherwise only the first occurrence will be replaced.

Returns the number of replacements made.

wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wxString str 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
size_t  nCount,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wxString str,
size_t  nStart2,
size_t  nLen2 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const char *  sz,
size_t  nCount 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nCount 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( size_t  nStart,
size_t  nLen,
const wxString s,
size_t  nCount 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const wxString s 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const char *  s,
size_type  n 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const wchar_t *  s,
size_type  n 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
size_type  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const_iterator  first1,
const_iterator  last1 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const char *  first1,
const char *  last1 
)
wxString& wxString::replace ( iterator  first,
iterator  last,
const wchar_t *  first1,
const wchar_t *  last1 
)
void wxString::reserve ( size_t  sz)
void wxString::resize ( size_t  nSize,
wxUniChar  ch = '\0' 
)
size_t wxString::rfind ( const wxString str,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::rfind ( const char *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos,
size_t  n = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::rfind ( const wchar_t *  sz,
size_t  nStart = npos,
size_t  n = npos 
) const
size_t wxString::rfind ( wxUniChar  ch,
size_t  nStart = npos 
) const
wxString wxString::Right ( size_t  count) const

Returns the last count characters.

void wxString::SetChar ( size_t  n,
wxUniChar  ch 
)

Sets the character at position n.

bool wxString::Shrink ( )

Minimizes the string's memory.

This can be useful after a call to Alloc() if too much memory were preallocated.

size_type wxString::size ( ) const
bool wxString::StartsWith ( const wxString prefix,
wxString rest = NULL 
) const

This function can be used to test if the string starts with the specified prefix.

If it does, the function will return true and put the rest of the string (i.e. after the prefix) into rest string if it is not NULL. Otherwise, the function returns false and doesn't modify the rest.

wxString wxString::Strip ( stripType  s = trailing) const

Strip characters at the front and/or end.

This is the same as Trim() except that it doesn't change this string.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

wxString wxString::substr ( size_t  nStart = 0,
size_t  nLen = npos 
) const
wxString wxString::SubString ( size_t  from,
size_t  to 
) const

Returns the part of the string between the indices from and to inclusive.

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function, use Mid() instead (but note that parameters have different meaning).

void wxString::swap ( wxString str)
template<typename T >
wxCharTypeBuffer<T> wxString::tchar_str ( size_t *  len = NULL) const

Returns buffer of the specified type containing the string data.

This method is only useful in template code, otherwise you should directly call mb_str() or wc_str() if you need to retrieve a narrow or wide string from this wxString. The template parameter t should be either char or wchar_t.

Notice that retrieving a char buffer in UTF-8 build will return the internal string representation in UTF-8 while in wchar_t build the char buffer will contain the conversion of the string to the encoding of the current locale (and so can fail).

Parameters
lenIf non-NULL, filled with the length of the returned buffer.
Returns
buffer containing the string contents in the specified type, notice that it may be NULL if the conversion failed (e.g. Unicode string couldn't be converted to the current encoding when T is char).
const wxScopedCharBuffer wxString::To8BitData ( ) const

Converts the string to an 8-bit string in ISO-8859-1 encoding in the form of a wxCharBuffer (Unicode builds only).

This is a convenience method useful when storing binary data in wxString. It should be used only for this purpose. It is only valid to call this method on strings created using From8BitData().

Since
2.8.4
See Also
wxString::From8BitData()
const char* wxString::ToAscii ( ) const

Converts the string to an ASCII, 7-bit string in the form of a wxCharBuffer (Unicode builds only) or a C string (ANSI builds).

Note that this conversion is only lossless if the string contains only ASCII characters as all the non-ASCII ones are replaced with the '_' (underscore) character.

Use mb_str() or utf8_str() to convert to other encodings.

const wxCharBuffer wxString::ToAscii ( ) const

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

bool wxString::ToCDouble ( double *  val) const

Variant of ToDouble() always working in "C" locale.

Works like ToDouble() but unlike it this function expects the floating point number to be formatted always with the rules dictated by the "C" locale (in particular, the decimal point must be a dot), independently from the current application-wide locale (see wxLocale).

See Also
ToDouble(), ToLong(), ToULong()
bool wxString::ToCLong ( long *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

Variant of ToLong() always working in "C" locale.

Works like ToLong() but unlike it this function expects the integer number to be formatted always with the rules dictated by the "C" locale, independently from the current application-wide locale (see wxLocale).

See Also
ToDouble(), ToLong(), ToULong()
bool wxString::ToCULong ( unsigned long *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

Variant of ToULong() always working in "C" locale.

Works like ToULong() but unlike it this function expects the integer number to be formatted always with the rules dictated by the "C" locale, independently from the current application-wide locale (see wxLocale).

See Also
ToDouble(), ToLong(), ToULong()
bool wxString::ToDouble ( double *  val) const

Attempts to convert the string to a floating point number.

Returns true on success (the number is stored in the location pointed to by val) or false if the string does not represent such number (the value of val may still be modified in this case).

Note that unlike ToCDouble() this function uses a localized version of wxStrtod() and thus needs as decimal point (and thousands separator) the locale-specific decimal point. Thus you should use this function only when you are sure that this string contains a floating point number formatted with the rules of the locale currently in use (see wxLocale).

Also notice that even this function is locale-specific it does not support strings with thousands separators in them, even if the current locale uses digits grouping. You may use wxNumberFormatter::FromString() to parse such strings.

Please refer to the documentation of the standard function strtod() for more details about the supported syntax.

See Also
ToCDouble(), ToLong(), ToULong()
bool wxString::ToLong ( long *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

Attempts to convert the string to a signed integer in base base.

Returns true on success in which case the number is stored in the location pointed to by val or false if the string does not represent a valid number in the given base (the value of val may still be modified in this case).

The value of base must be comprised between 2 and 36, inclusive, or be a special value 0 which means that the usual rules of C numbers are applied: if the number starts with 0x it is considered to be in base 16, if it starts with 0 - in base 8 and in base 10 otherwise. Note that you may not want to specify the base 0 if you are parsing the numbers which may have leading zeroes as they can yield unexpected (to the user not familiar with C) results.

Note that unlike ToCLong() this function uses a localized version of wxStrtol(). Thus you should use this function only when you are sure that this string contains an integer number formatted with the rules of the locale currently in use (see wxLocale).

As with ToDouble(), this function does not support strings containing thousands separators even if the current locale uses digits grouping. You may use wxNumberFormatter::FromString() to parse such strings.

Please refer to the documentation of the standard function strtol() for more details about the supported syntax.

See Also
ToCDouble(), ToDouble(), ToULong()
bool wxString::ToLongLong ( wxLongLong_t *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

This is exactly the same as ToLong() but works with 64 bit integer numbers.

Notice that currently it doesn't work (always returns false) if parsing of 64 bit numbers is not supported by the underlying C run-time library. Compilers with C99 support and Microsoft Visual C++ version 7 and higher do support this.

See Also
ToLong(), ToULongLong()
std::string wxString::ToStdString ( ) const

Return the string as an std::string in current locale encoding.

Note that if the conversion of (Unicode) string contents to the current locale fails, the return string will be empty. Be sure to check for this to avoid silent data loss.

Instead of using this function it's also possible to write

std::string s;
...
s = std::string(wxs);

but using ToStdString() may make the code more clear.

Since
2.9.1
std::wstring wxString::ToStdWstring ( ) const

Return the string as an std::wstring.

Unlike ToStdString(), there is no danger of data loss when using this function.

Since
2.9.1
bool wxString::ToULong ( unsigned long *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

Attempts to convert the string to an unsigned integer in base base.

Returns true on success in which case the number is stored in the location pointed to by val or false if the string does not represent a valid number in the given base (the value of val may still be modified in this case).

Please notice that this function behaves in the same way as the standard strtoul() and so it simply converts negative numbers to unsigned representation instead of rejecting them (e.g. -1 is returned as ULONG_MAX).

See ToLong() for the more detailed description of the base parameter (and of the locale-specific behaviour of this function).

See Also
ToCULong(), ToDouble(), ToLong()
bool wxString::ToULongLong ( wxULongLong_t *  val,
int  base = 10 
) const

This is exactly the same as ToULong() but works with 64 bit integer numbers.

Please see ToLongLong() for additional remarks.

const wxScopedCharBuffer wxString::ToUTF8 ( ) const

Same as utf8_str().

wxString& wxString::Trim ( bool  fromRight = true)

Removes white-space (space, tabs, form feed, newline and carriage return) from the left or from the right end of the string (right is default).

wxString& wxString::Truncate ( size_t  len)

Truncate the string to the given length.

void wxString::UngetWriteBuf ( )

Puts the string back into a reasonable state (in which it can be used normally), after GetWriteBuf() was called.

The version of the function without the len parameter will calculate the new string length itself assuming that the string is terminated by the first NUL character in it while the second one will use the specified length and thus is the only version which should be used with the strings with embedded NULs (it is also slightly more efficient as strlen() doesn't have to be called).

This method is deprecated, please use wxStringBuffer or wxStringBufferLength instead.

void wxString::UngetWriteBuf ( size_t  len)

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

wxString wxString::Upper ( ) const

Returns this string converted to upper case.

See Also
MakeUpper()
void wxString::UpperCase ( )

The same as MakeUpper().

This is a wxWidgets 1.xx compatibility function; you should not use it in new code.

const wxScopedCharBuffer wxString::utf8_str ( ) const

Converts the strings contents to UTF-8 and returns it either as a temporary wxCharBuffer object or as a pointer to the internal string contents in UTF-8 build.

See Also
wc_str(), c_str(), mb_str()
const wchar_t* wxString::wc_str ( ) const

Converts the strings contents to the wide character representation and returns it as a temporary wxWCharBuffer object (Unix and OS X) or returns a pointer to the internal string contents in wide character mode (Windows).

The macro wxWX2WCbuf is defined as the correct return type (without const).

See Also
utf8_str(), c_str(), mb_str(), fn_str(), wchar_str()
const wxWCharBuffer wxString::wc_str ( ) const

This is an overloaded member function, provided for convenience. It differs from the above function only in what argument(s) it accepts.

wxWritableWCharBuffer wxString::wchar_str ( ) const

Returns an object with string data that is implicitly convertible to char* pointer.

Note that changes to the returned buffer may or may not be lost (depending on the build) and so this function is only usable for passing strings to legacy libraries that don't have const-correct API. Use wxStringBuffer if you want to modify the string.

See Also
mb_str(), wc_str(), fn_str(), c_str(), char_str()
const wxStringCharType* wxString::wx_str ( ) const

Explicit conversion to C string in the internal representation (either wchar_t* or UTF-8-encoded char*, depending on the build).

Member Data Documentation

const size_t wxString::npos
static

An 'invalid' value for string index.