Linux, field_buffer does not provide a UTF-8 string - c

Question

In a C program for Linux, with ncursesw and form, I need to read the string stored in a field, with support for UTF-8 characters. When ASCII only is used, it is pretty simple, because the string is stored as an array of char:
char *dest;
...
dest = field_buffer(field[0], 0);
If I try to type a UTF-8 and non-ASCII character in the field with this code the character does not appear and it is not handled. In this answer for UTF-8 it is suggested to use ncursesw. But with the following code (written following this guide)
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
#include <ncursesw/form.h>
#include <locale.h>
int main()
{
...
setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
...
initscr();
wchar_t *dest;
...
dest = field_buffer(field[0], 0);
}
the compiler produces an error:
warning: assignment from incompatible pointer type [enabled by default]
dest = field_buffer(field[0], 0);
^
How to obtain from the field an array of wchar_t?
ncursesw uses get_wch instead of getch, so which function does it use instead of field_buffer()? I couldn't find it by googling.

Answer 1

The program is compiled in a system with the following locale:
$ locale
LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="it_IT.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
It supports and uses UTF-8 as a default. With a locale like this, when the ncursesw environment is used, the C program should be able to save UTF-8 characters into a char array.
In order to correctly set up ncursesw it is very important to follow all the steps of the mentioned guide. In particular, the program should have the header
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED
#include <ncursesw/form.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <locale.h>
The program should be compiled as
gcc -o executable_file source_file.c -lncursesw -lformw
and the program should contain
setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
before initscr();. With all these conditions satisfied, the string can be saved into a normal char array, as if ncurses and ASCII were used instead of ncursesw and UTF-8. As specified by John Bollinger in the comments, the function field_buffer can only return a char * and so it is unuseful to use any other data type such as wchar_t.