What is the use of wchar_t in general programming?

Question

Today I was learning some C++ basics and came to know about wchar_t. I was not able to figure out, why do we actually need this datatype, and how do I use it?

Answer 1

I understand most of them have answered it but as I was learning C++ basics too and came to know about wchar_t, I would like to tell you what I understood after searching about it.

1. wchar_t is used when you need to store a character over ASCII 255 , because these characters have a greater size than our character type 'char'. Hence, requiring more memory.

   e.g.:

          wchar_t var = L"Привет мир\n"; // hello world in russian
   

2. It generally has a size greater than 8-bit character.

3. The windows operating system uses it substantially.

4. It is usually used when there is a foreign language involved.