Most modern software relies on the Unicode standard. In memory, Unicode strings are represented using either UTF-8 or UTF-16. The UTF-8 format is the de facto standard on the web (JSON, HTML, etc.) and it has been adopted as the default in many popular programming languages (Go, Rust, Swift, etc.). The UTF-16 format is standard in Java, C# and in many Windows technologies.
Not all sequences of bytes are valid Unicode strings. It is unsafe to use Unicode strings in UTF-8 and UTF-16LE without first validating them. Furthermore, we often need to convert strings from one encoding to another, by a process called transcoding. For security purposes, such transcoding should be validating: it should refuse to transcode incorrect strings.
This library provide fast Unicode functions such as
- ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16LE/BE and UTF-32 validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-8 to UTF-16LE/BE transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-8 to UTF-32 transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-16LE/BE to UTF-8 transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-32 to UTF-8 transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-32 to UTF-16LE/BE transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- UTF-16LE/BE to UTF-32 transcoding, with or without validation, with and without error identification,
- From an UTF-8 string, compute the size of the UTF-16 equivalent string,
- From an UTF-8 string, compute the size of the UTF-32 equivalent string (equivalent to UTF-8 character counting),
- From an UTF-16LE/BE string, compute the size of the UTF-8 equivalent string,
- From an UTF-32 string, compute the size of the UTF-8 or UTF-16LE equivalent string,
- From an UTF-16LE/BE string, compute the size of the UTF-32 equivalent string (equivalent to UTF-16 character counting),
- UTF-8 and UTF-16LE/BE character counting.
- UTF-16 endianness change (UTF16-LE/BE to UTF-16-BE/LE)
The functions are accelerated using SIMD instructions (e.g., ARM NEON, SSE, AVX, AVX-512, etc.). When your strings contain hundreds of characters, we can often transcode them at speeds exceeding a billion characters per second. You should expect high speeds not only with English strings (ASCII) but also Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and so forth. We handle the full character range (including, for example, emojis).
The library compiles down to a small library of a few hundred kilobytes. Our functions are exception-free and non allocating. We have extensive tests and extensive benchmarks.
Over a wide range of realistic data sources, we transcode a billion characters per second or more. Our approach can be 3 to 10 times faster than the popular ICU library on difficult (non-ASCII) strings. We can be 20x faster than ICU when processing easy strings (ASCII). Our good results apply to both recent x64 and ARM processors.
To illustrate, we present a benchmark result with values are in billions of characters processed by second. Consider the following figures.
If your system supports AVX-512, the simdutf library can provide very high perforamnce. We get the following speed results on an Ice Lake Intel processor (both AVX2 and AVX-512) are simdutf kernels:
Datasets: https://github.com/lemire/unicode_lipsum
Please refer to our benchmarking tool for a proper interpretation of the numbers. Our results are reproducible.
The simdutf library is used by:
- Node.js (19.4.0 or better), a standard JavaScript runtime environment (e.g.,
buffer.isUtf8(...)callssimdutf), - Bun, a fast JavaScript runtime environment,
- haskell/text, a library for fast operations over Unicode text,
- klogg, a Really fast log explorer,
- Pixie, observability tool for Kubernetes applications.
- C++11 compatible compiler. We support LLVM clang, GCC, Visual Studio. (Our optional benchmark tool requires C++17.)
- For high speed, you should have a recent 64-bit system (e.g., ARM or x64).
- If you rely on CMake, you should use a recent CMake (at least 3.15) ; otherwise you may use the single header version. The library is also available from Microsoft's vcpkg.
- AVX-512 support require a processor with AVX512-VBMI2 (Ice Lake or better) and a recent compiler (GCC 8 or better, Visual Studio 2019 or better, LLVM clang 6 or better). You need a correspondingly recent assembler such as gas (2.30+) or nasm (2.14+): recent compilers usually come with recent assemblers. If you mix a recent compiler with an incompatible/old assembler (e.g., when using a recent compiler with an old Linux distribution), you may get errors at build time because the compiler produces instructions that the assembler does not recognize: you should update your assembler to match your compiler (e.g., upgrade binutils to version 2.30 or better under Linux) or use an older compiler matching the capabilities of your assembler.
We made a video to help you get started with the library.
cmake -B build
cmake --build build
cd build
ctest .
Visual Studio users must specify whether they want to build the Release or Debug version.
To run benchmarks, execute the benchmark command. You can get help on its
usage by first building it and then calling it with the --help flag.
E.g., under Linux you may do the following:
cmake -B build
cmake --build build
./build/benchmarks/benchmark --help
Instructions are similar for Visual Studio users.
Since ICU is so common and popular, we assume that you may have it already on your system. When
it is not found, it is simply omitted from the benchmarks. Thus, to benchmark against ICU, make
sure you have ICU installed on your machine and that cmake can find it. For macOS, you may
install it with brew using brew install icu4c. If you have ICU on your system but cmake cannot
find it, you may need to provide cmake with a path to ICU, such as ICU_ROOT=/usr/local/opt/icu4c cmake -B build.
You can create a single-header version of the library where
all of the code is put into two files (simdutf.h and simdutf.cpp).
We publish a zip archive containing these files, e.g., see
https://github.com/simdutf/simdutf/releases/download/v2.2.0/singleheader.zip
You may generate it on your own using a Python script.
python3 ./singleheader/amalgamate.py
We require Python 3 or better.
Under Linux and macOS, you may test it as follows:
cd singleheader
c++ -o amalgamation_demo amalgamation_demo.cpp -std=c++17
./amalgamation_demo
Using the single-header version, you could compile the following program.
#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
#include "simdutf.cpp"
#include "simdutf.h"
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
const char *source = "1234";
// 4 == strlen(source)
bool validutf8 = simdutf::validate_utf8(source, 4);
if (validutf8) {
std::cout << "valid UTF-8" << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "invalid UTF-8" << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
// We need a buffer of size where to write the UTF-16LE words.
size_t expected_utf16words = simdutf::utf16_length_from_utf8(source, 4);
std::unique_ptr<char16_t[]> utf16_output{new char16_t[expected_utf16words]};
// convert to UTF-16LE
size_t utf16words =
simdutf::convert_utf8_to_utf16le(source, 4, utf16_output.get());
std::cout << "wrote " << utf16words << " UTF-16LE words." << std::endl;
// It wrote utf16words * sizeof(char16_t) bytes.
bool validutf16 = simdutf::validate_utf16le(utf16_output.get(), utf16words);
if (validutf16) {
std::cout << "valid UTF-16LE" << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "invalid UTF-16LE" << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
// convert it back:
// We need a buffer of size where to write the UTF-8 words.
size_t expected_utf8words =
simdutf::utf8_length_from_utf16le(utf16_output.get(), utf16words);
std::unique_ptr<char[]> utf8_output{new char[expected_utf8words]};
// convert to UTF-8
size_t utf8words = simdutf::convert_utf16le_to_utf8(
utf16_output.get(), utf16words, utf8_output.get());
std::cout << "wrote " << utf8words << " UTF-8 words." << std::endl;
std::string final_string(utf8_output.get(), utf8words);
std::cout << final_string << std::endl;
if (final_string != source) {
std::cerr << "bad conversion" << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
} else {
std::cerr << "perfect round trip" << std::endl;
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}Our API is made of a few non-allocating function. They typically take a pointer and a length as a parameter, and they sometimes take a pointer to an output buffer. Users are responsible for memory allocation.
We use three types of data pointer types:
char*for UTF-8 or indeterminate Unicode formats,char16_t*for UTF-16 (both UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE),char32_t*for UTF-32. UTF-32 is primarily used for internal use, not data interchange. Thus, unless otherwise stated,char32_trefers to the native type and is typically UTF-32LE since virtually all systems are little-endian today.
Our functions and declarations are all in the simdutf namespace. Thus you should prefix our functions
and types with simdutf:: as required.
We have basic functions to detect the type of an input. They return an integer defined by
the following enum.
enum encoding_type {
UTF8 = 1, // BOM 0xef 0xbb 0xbf
UTF16_LE = 2, // BOM 0xff 0xfe
UTF16_BE = 4, // BOM 0xfe 0xff
UTF32_LE = 8, // BOM 0xff 0xfe 0x00 0x00
UTF32_BE = 16, // BOM 0x00 0x00 0xfe 0xff
unspecified = 0
};/**
* Autodetect the encoding of the input, a single encoding is recommended.
* E.g., the function might return simdutf::encoding_type::UTF8,
* simdutf::encoding_type::UTF16_LE, simdutf::encoding_type::UTF16_BE, or
* simdutf::encoding_type::UTF32_LE.
*
* @param input the string to analyze.
* @param length the length of the string in bytes.
* @return the detected encoding type
*/
simdutf_warn_unused simdutf::encoding_type autodetect_encoding(const char * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Autodetect the possible encodings of the input in one pass.
* E.g., if the input might be UTF-16LE or UTF-8, this function returns
* the value (simdutf::encoding_type::UTF8 | simdutf::encoding_type::UTF16_LE).
*
* Overriden by each implementation.
*
* @param input the string to analyze.
* @param length the length of the string in bytes.
* @return the detected encoding type
*/
simdutf_warn_unused int detect_encodings(const char * input, size_t length) noexcept;For validation and transcoding, we also provide functions that will stop on error and return a result struct which is a pair of two fields:
struct result {
error_code error; // see `struct error_code`.
size_t count; // In case of error, indicates the position of the error in the input.
// In case of success, indicates the number of words validated/written.
};On error, the error field indicates the type of error encountered and the position field indicates its word position in the input string.
We report six types of errors related to UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 encodings:
enum error_code {
SUCCESS = 0,
HEADER_BITS, // Any byte must have fewer than 5 header bits.
TOO_SHORT, // The leading byte must be followed by N-1 continuation bytes, where N is the UTF-8 character length
// This is also the error when the input is truncated.
TOO_LONG, // The leading byte must not be a continuation byte.
OVERLONG, // The decoded character must be above U+7F for two-byte characters, U+7FF for three-byte characters,
// and U+FFFF for four-byte characters.
TOO_LARGE, // The decoded character must be less than or equal to U+10FFFF OR less than or equal than U+7F for ASCII.
SURROGATE, // The decoded character must be not be in U+D800...DFFF (UTF-8 or UTF-32) OR
// a high surrogate must be followed by a low surrogate and a low surrogate must be preceded by a high surrogate (UTF-16)
OTHER // Not related to validation/transcoding.
};On success, the error field is set to SUCCESS and the position field indicates either the number of words validated for validation functions or the number of written
words in the output format for transcoding functions.
Generally speaking, functions that report errors always stop soon after an error is encountered and might therefore be faster on inputs where an error occurs early in the input. The functions that return a boolean indicating whether or not an error has been encountered are meant to be used in an optimistic setting---when we expect that inputs will almost always be correct.
We have fast validation functions.
/**
* Validate the ASCII string.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* @param buf the ASCII string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in bytes.
* @return true if and only if the string is valid ASCII.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused bool validate_ascii(const char *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the ASCII string and stop on error.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* @param buf the ASCII string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in bytes.
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of words validated if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result validate_ascii_with_errors(const char *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-8 string. This function may be best when you expect
* the input to be almost always valid. Otherwise, consider using
* validate_utf8_with_errors.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* @param buf the UTF-8 string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in bytes.
* @return true if and only if the string is valid UTF-8.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused bool validate_utf8(const char *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-8 string and stop on error. It might be faster than
* validate_utf8 when an error is expected to occur early.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* @param buf the UTF-8 string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in bytes.
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of words validated if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result validate_utf8_with_errors(const char *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-16LE string. This function may be best when you expect
* the input to be almost always valid. Otherwise, consider using
* validate_utf16le_with_errors.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-16LE string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 2-byte words (char16_t).
* @return true if and only if the string is valid UTF-16LE.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused bool validate_utf16le(const char16_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-16BE string. This function may be best when you expect
* the input to be almost always valid. Otherwise, consider using
* validate_utf16be_with_errors.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-16BE string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 2-byte words (char16_t).
* @return true if and only if the string is valid UTF-16BE.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused bool validate_utf16be(const char16_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-16LE string and stop on error. It might be faster than
* validate_utf16le when an error is expected to occur early.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-16LE string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 2-byte words (char16_t).
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of words validated if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result validate_utf16le_with_errors(const char16_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-16BE string and stop on error. It might be faster than
* validate_utf16be when an error is expected to occur early.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-16BE string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 2-byte words (char16_t).
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of words validated if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result validate_utf16be_with_errors(const char16_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-32 string.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-32 string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 4-byte words (char32_t).
* @return true if and only if the string is valid UTF-32.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused bool validate_utf32(const char32_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
/**
* Validate the UTF-32 string and stop on error.
*
* Overridden by each implementation.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param buf the UTF-32 string to validate.
* @param len the length of the string in number of 4-byte words (char32_t).
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of words validated if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result validate_utf32_with_errors(const char32_t *buf, size_t len) noexcept;
Given a valid UTF-8 or UTF-16 input, you may count the number Unicode characters using fast functions. For UTF-32, there is no need for a function given that each character requires a flat 4 bytes.
/**
* Count the number of code points (characters) in the string assuming that
* it is valid.
*
* This function assumes that the input string is valid UTF-16LE.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to process
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return number of code points
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t count_utf16le(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Count the number of code points (characters) in the string assuming that
* it is valid.
*
* This function assumes that the input string is valid UTF-16BE.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to process
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return number of code points
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t count_utf16be(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Count the number of code points (characters) in the string assuming that
* it is valid.
*
* This function assumes that the input string is valid UTF-8.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to process
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @return number of code points
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t count_utf8(const char * input, size_t length) noexcept;
Prior to transcoding an input, you need to allocate enough memory to receive the result. We have fast function that scan the input and compute the size of the output. These functions are fast and non-validating.
/**
* Compute the number of 2-byte words that this UTF-8 string would require in UTF-16 format.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to process
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @return the number of char16_t words required to encode the UTF-8 string as UTF-16
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf16_length_from_utf8(const char * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of 4-byte words that this UTF-8 string would require in UTF-32 format.
*
* This function is equivalent to count_utf8
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to process
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @return the number of char32_t words required to encode the UTF-8 string as UTF-32
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf32_length_from_utf8(const char * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of bytes that this UTF-16LE string would require in UTF-8 format.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-16LE string as UTF-8
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf8_length_from_utf16le(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of bytes that this UTF-16BE string would require in UTF-8 format.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-16BE string as UTF-8
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf8_length_from_utf16be(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of bytes that this UTF-32 string would require in UTF-8 format.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-32 string as UTF-8
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf8_length_from_utf32(const char32_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of two-byte words that this UTF-32 string would require in UTF-16 format.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-32 string as UTF-16
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf16_length_from_utf32(const char32_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of bytes that this UTF-16LE string would require in UTF-32 format.
*
* This function is equivalent to count_utf16le.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-16LE string as UTF-32
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf32_length_from_utf16le(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;
/**
* Compute the number of bytes that this UTF-16BE string would require in UTF-32 format.
*
* This function is equivalent to count_utf16be.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @return the number of bytes required to encode the UTF-16BE string as UTF-32
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t utf32_length_from_utf16be(const char16_t * input, size_t length) noexcept;We have a wide range of conversion between UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32. They assume
that you are allocated sufficient memory for the input. The simplest conversin
function output a single integer representing the size of the input, with a value of zero
indicating an error (e.g., convert_utf8_to_utf16le). They are well suited in the
scenario where you expect the input to be valid most of the time.
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-16LE string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return the number of written char16_t; 0 if the input was not valid UTF-8 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf8_to_utf16le(const char * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-16BE string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return the number of written char16_t; 0 if the input was not valid UTF-8 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf8_to_utf16be(const char * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-32 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return the number of written char32_t; 0 if the input was not valid UTF-8 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf8_to_utf32(const char * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16LE string into UTF-8 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-16LE string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf16le_to_utf8(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16BE string into UTF-8 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-16LE string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf16be_to_utf8(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-8 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-32 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf32_to_utf8(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-16LE string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-32 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf32_to_utf16le(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-16BE string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-32 string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf32_to_utf16be(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16LE string into UTF-32 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-16LE string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf16le_to_utf32(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16BE string into UTF-32 string.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return number of written words; 0 if input is not a valid UTF-16LE string
*/
simdutf_warn_unused size_t convert_utf16be_to_utf32(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_buffer) noexcept;We have more advanced conversion functions which output a simdutf::result structure with
an indication of the error type and a count entry (e.g., convert_utf8_to_utf16le_with_errors).
They are well suited when you expect that there might be errors in the input that require
further investigation.
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-16LE string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char16_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf8_to_utf16le_with_errors(const char * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-16BE string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char16_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf8_to_utf16be_with_errors(const char * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-8 string into UTF-32 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* @param input the UTF-8 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in bytes
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char32_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf8_to_utf32_with_errors(const char * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_output) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16LE string into UTF-8 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf16le_to_utf8_with_errors(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16BE string into UTF-8 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf16be_to_utf8_with_errors(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-8 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf8_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf32_to_utf8_with_errors(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char* utf8_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-16LE string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char16_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf32_to_utf16le_with_errors(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-32 string into UTF-16BE string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-32 string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 4-byte words (char32_t)
* @param utf16_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char16_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf32_to_utf16be_with_errors(const char32_t * input, size_t length, char16_t* utf16_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16LE string into UTF-32 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16LE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char32_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf16le_to_utf32_with_errors(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_buffer) noexcept;
/**
* Convert possibly broken UTF-16BE string into UTF-32 string and stop on error.
*
* During the conversion also validation of the input string is done.
* This function is suitable to work with inputs from untrusted sources.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16BE string to convert
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param utf32_buffer the pointer to buffer that can hold conversion result
* @return a result pair struct with an error code and either the position of the error if any or the number of char32_t written if successful.
*/
simdutf_warn_unused result convert_utf16be_to_utf32_with_errors(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char32_t* utf32_buffer) noexcept;
If you have a UTF-16 input, you may change its endianess with a fast function.
/**
* Change the endianness of the input. Can be used to go from UTF-16LE to UTF-16BE or
* from UTF-16BE to UTF-16LE.
*
* This function does not validate the input.
*
* This function is not BOM-aware.
*
* @param input the UTF-16 string to process
* @param length the length of the string in 2-byte words (char16_t)
* @param output the pointer to buffer that can hold the conversion result
*/
void change_endianness_utf16(const char16_t * input, size_t length, char16_t * output) noexcept;
We also provide a command-line tool which can be build as follows:
cmake -B build && cmake --build build --target sutf
This command builds the executable in ./build/tool/ under most platforms. The sutf tool enables the user to easily transcode files from one encoding to another directly from the command line.
The usage is similar to iconv (see sutf --help for more details). The sutf command-line tool relies on the simdutf library functions for fast transcoding of supported
formats (UTF-8, UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE and UTF-32). If iconv is found on the system and simdutf does not support a conversion, the sutf tool falls back on iconv: a message lets the user know if iconv is available
during compilation. The following is an example of transcoding two input files to an output file, from UTF-8 to UTF-16LE:
sutf -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16LE -o output_file.txt first_input_file.txt second_input_file.txt
- Robert Clausecker, Daniel Lemire, Transcoding Unicode Characters with AVX-512 Instructions (in preparation).
- Daniel Lemire, Wojciech Muła, Transcoding Billions of Unicode Characters per Second with SIMD Instructions, Software: Practice and Experience52 (2), 2022.
- John Keiser, Daniel Lemire, Validating UTF-8 In Less Than One Instruction Per Byte, Software: Practice and Experience 51 (5), 2021.
This code is made available under the Apache License 2.0 as well as the MIT license.
We include a few competitive solutions under the benchmarks/competition directory. They are provided for research purposes only.
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