• Point to lead bytes, not trail bytes. It is usually unsafe to have a pointer to a trail byte. It is usually safer to scan a string forward rather than in reverse.

• There are pointer increment/decrement functions and macros available that move over a whole character:

  В	Copy Code
  sz1++;

  becomes:

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  sz1 = _mbsinc( sz1 );

  The _mbsinc and _mbsdec functions correctly increment and decrement in character units, regardless of the character size.

• For decrements, you need a pointer to the head of the string, as in the following:

  В	Copy Code
  sz2--;

  becomes:

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  sz2 = _mbsdec( sz2Head, sz2 );

  Alternatively, your head pointer could be to a valid character in the string, such that:

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  sz2Head < sz2

  You must have a pointer to a known valid lead byte.

• You might want to maintain a pointer to the previous character for faster calls to _mbsdec.

Concepts