GLib.utf16_to_utf8
Description: Reference for GLib.utf16_to_utf8

### Function

# GLibutf16_to_utf8

#### Declaration [src]

    gchar*
    g_utf16_to_utf8 (
      const gunichar2* str,
      glong len,
      glong* items_read,
      glong* items_written,
      GError** error
    )

#### Description [src]

Convert a string from UTF-16 to UTF-8.

The result will be terminated with a nul byte.

Note that the input is expected to be already in native endianness, an initial byte-order-mark character is not handled specially. `g_convert()` can be used to convert a byte buffer of UTF-16 data of ambiguous endianness.

Further note that this function does not validate the result string; it may (for example) include embedded nul characters. The only validation done by this function is to ensure that the input can be correctly interpreted as UTF-16, i.e. it doesn’t contain unpaired surrogates or partial character sequences.

#### Parameters

`str`

  Type: An array of `guint16`

  A UTF-16 encoded string.

  The length of the array is specified in the `len` argument.
  The data is owned by the caller of the function.

`len`

  Type: `glong`

  The maximum length (number of #gunichar2) of `str` to use. If `len` is negative, then the string is nul-terminated.

`items_read`

  Type: `glong*`

  Location to store number of words read, or `NULL`. If `NULL`, then `G_CONVERT_ERROR_PARTIAL_INPUT` will be returned in case `str` contains a trailing partial character. If an error occurs then the index of the invalid input is stored here. It’s guaranteed to be non-negative.

  The argument will be set by the function.
  The argument can be `NULL`.

`items_written`

  Type: `glong*`

  Location to store number of bytes written, or `NULL`. The value stored here does not include the trailing nul byte. It’s guaranteed to be non-negative.

  The argument will be set by the function.
  The argument can be `NULL`.

`error`

  Type: `GError **`

  The return location for a recoverable error.

  The argument can be `NULL`.
  If the return location is not `NULL`, then you must initialize it to a `NULL` `GError*`.
  The argument will be left initialized to `NULL` by the function if there are no errors.
  In case of error, the argument will be set to a newly allocated `GError`; the caller will take ownership of the data, and be responsible for freeing it.

#### Return value

Type: `gchar*`

A pointer to a newly allocated UTF-8 string. This value must be freed with `g_free()`.

The caller of the function takes ownership of the data, and is responsible for freeing it.
The value is a NUL terminated UTF-8 string.