The getws() function reads a string of characters from the standard input stream, stdin, converts these characters to the corresponding wide-character codes, and writes them to the array pointed to by ws, until a newline character is read, converted and transferred to ws or an end-of-file condition is encountered. The wide-character string, ws, is then terminated with a null wide-character code.

The fgetws() function reads characters from the stream, converts them to the corresponding wide-character codes, and places them in the wchar_t array pointed to by ws until n-1 characters are read, or until a newline character is read, converted and transferred to ws, or an end-of-file condition is encountered. The wide-character string, ws, is then terminated with a null wide-character code.

If an error occurs, the resulting value of the file position indicator for the stream is indeterminate.

The fgetws() function may mark the st_atime field of the file associated with stream for update. The st_atime field will be marked for update by the first successful execution of fgetc(3C), fgets(3C), fgetwc(3C), fgetws(), fread(3C), fscanf(3C), getc(3C), getchar(3C), gets(3C), or scanf(3C) using stream that returns data not supplied by a prior call to scanf(3C) or scanf(3C).

Upon successful completion, getws() and fgetws() returns ws. If the stream is at end-of-file, the end-of-file indicator for the stream is set and fgetws() returns a null pointer. If a read error occurs, the error indicator for the stream is set, fgetws() returns a null pointer and sets errno to indicate the error.

See fgetwc(3C) for the conditions that will cause fgetws() to fail.

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ferror(3C), fgetwc(3C), fread(3C), getwc(3C), putws(3C), scanf(3C), attributes(5)