NAME
mblen - determine number of bytes in next multibyte character SYNOPSIS
#include
int mblen(const char *s, sizet n); DESCRIPTION If s is not a NULL pointer, the mblen() function inspects at most n bytes of the multibyte string starting at s and extracts the next com‐ plete multibyte character. It uses a static anonymous shift state known only to the mblen() function. If the multibyte character is not the null wide character, it returns the number of bytes that were con‐ sumed from s. If the multibyte character is the null wide character, it returns 0. If the n bytes starting at s do not contain a complete multibyte char‐ acter, mblen() returns -1. This can happen even if n is greater than or equal to MBCURMAX, if the multibyte string contains redundant shift sequences. If the multibyte string starting at s contains an invalid multibyte
sequence before the next complete character, mblen() also returns -1. If s is a NULL pointer, the mblen() function resets the shift state, known to only this function, to the initial state, and returns nonzero if the encoding has nontrivial shift state, or zero if the encoding is stateless. RETURN VALUE The mblen() function returns the number of bytes parsed from the multi‐
byte sequence starting at s, if a non-null wide character was recog‐ nized. It returns 0, if a null wide character was recognized. It
returns -1, if an invalid multibyte sequence was encountered or if it couldn't parse a complete multibyte character. ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7). ┌──────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┐ │Interface │ Attribute │ Value │ ├──────────┼───────────────┼────────────────┤
│mblen() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race │ └──────────┴───────────────┴────────────────┘ CONFORMING TO C99. NOTES The behavior of mblen() depends on the LCCTYPE category of the current locale. The function mbrlen(3) provides a better interface to the same func‐ tionality. SEE ALSO mbrlen(3) COLOPHON
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GNU 2013-06-21 MBLEN(3)