Is wchar_t just a typedef of unsigned short?

Question

for example, does:

wchar_t x;

translate to:

unsigned short x;

Answer 1

For C, wchar_t is a typedef. Whether it is a synonym for unsigned int, whether it is an unsigned type at all, or whether it is 4 bytes, is implementation-defined.

In C++, wchar_t is a distinct built-in type. Here, too, its size and signedness is implementation-defined.