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
complete 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
recognized. 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
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