wchar_t , when should one use ?

[Deepak Kotian]

Hi,   When should one use wchar and when should one use char. I have heard lot about UNICODE. But what is the real need of wchar_t type ?   Actually, I have many read many files through a C program and it has Japanese text as well. What is advisable to use. Should it be fgetws or fgets, will also do. When should one use fgetws or fgets and reason. Please let me know, if someome can explain in simple terms or any document on this would be helpful.   Moreover, windows has wsystem(), wstat(),etc, which LINUX does not have, any reasons for that.   Please let me know, if anyone has any idea.   Thanks and Regards Deepak