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
       known only 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, 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 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.

ATTRIBUTES

   Multithreading (see pthreads(7))
       The mblen() function is not thread-safe.

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 3.54 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                                                2013-06-21                                           MBLEN(3)