Why was wchar_t invented?

Question

Why is wchar_t needed? How is it superior to short (or __int16 or whatever)?

(If it matters: I live in Windows world. I don\'t

Answer 1

It is "superior" in a sense that it allows you to separate contexts: you use wchar_t in character contexts (like strings), and you use short in numerical contexts (numbers). Now the compiler can perform type checking to help you catch situations where you mistakenly mix one with another, like pass an abstract non-string array of shorts to a string processing function.

As a side node (since this was a C question), in C++ wchar_t allows you to overload functions independently from short, i.e. again provide independent overloads that work with strings and numbers (for example).