mblen(3) [netbsd man page]

MBLEN(3)						   BSD Library Functions Manual 						  MBLEN(3)

NAME

     mblen -- get number of bytes in a multibyte character

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <stdlib.h>

     int
     mblen(const char *s, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION

     The mblen() function usually determines the number of bytes in a multibyte character pointed to by s and returns it.  This function shall
     only examine max n bytes of the array beginning from s.

     In state-dependent encodings, s may point the special sequence bytes to change the shift-state.  Although such sequence bytes corresponds to
     no individual wide-character code, the mblen() changes the own state by them and treats them as if they are a part of the subsequent multi-
     byte character.

     Unlike mbrlen(3), the first n bytes pointed to by s need to form an entire multibyte character.  Otherwise, this function causes an error.

     mblen() is equivalent to the following call, except the internal state of the mbtowc(3) function is not affected:

	   mbtowc(NULL, s, n);

     Calling any other functions in Standard C Library (libc, -lc) never changes the internal state of mblen(), except for calling setlocale(3)
     with the LC_CTYPE category changed to that of the current locale.	Such setlocale(3) calls cause the internal state of this function to be
     indeterminate.

     The behaviour of mblen() is affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale.

     These are the special cases:

     s == NULL	 mblen() initializes its own internal state to an initial state, and determines whether the current encoding is state-dependent.
		 This function returns 0 if the encoding is state-independent, otherwise non-zero.

     n == 0	 In this case, the first n bytes of the array pointed to by s never form a complete character.	Thus, mblen() always fails.

RETURN VALUES

     Normally, mblen() returns:

     0		 s points to a nul byte ('').

     positive	 The value returned is a number of bytes for the valid multibyte character pointed to by s.  There are no cases that this value is
		 greater than n or the value of the MB_CUR_MAX macro.

     -1 	 s points to an invalid or incomplete multibyte character.  The mblen() also sets errno to indicate the error.

     When s is equal to NULL, the mblen() returns:

     0		 The current encoding is state-independent.

     non-zero	 The current encoding is state-dependent.

ERRORS

     mblen() may cause an error in the following case:

     [EILSEQ]		s points to an invalid or incomplete multibyte character.

SEE ALSO

     mbrlen(3), mbtowc(3), setlocale(3)

STANDARDS

     The mblen() function conforms to ANSI X3.159-1989 (``ANSI C89'').

BSD
								 February 3, 2002							       BSD

Check Out this Related Man Page

MBLEN(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							  MBLEN(3)

NAME

       mblen - determine number of bytes in next multibyte character

SYNOPSIS

       #include <stdlib.h>

       int mblen(const char *s, size_t 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 only known to the mblen() function.  If the multibyte character  is  not
       the  null wide character, it returns the number of bytes that were consumed 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 character, mblen() returns -1.	This can happen even if n is greater  than
       or equal to MB_CUR_MAX, 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, only known to 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 multibyte 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.

CONFORMING TO

       C99.

NOTES

       The behavior of mblen() depends on the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale.

       The function mbrlen(3) provides a better interface to the same functionality.

SEE ALSO

       mbrlen(3)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

GNU
								    1999-07-25								  MBLEN(3)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

mblen(3) [netbsd man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page