MBLEN(3)

NAME
mblen mblen_l - get number of bytes in a multibyte character

SYNOPSIS
#include <stdlib.h>
int
mblen(const char *s, size_t n);
int
mblen_l(const char *s, size_t n, locale_t l);

DESCRIPTION
The functions mblen() and mblen_l() usually determines the number of bytes in a multibyte character pointed to by s and return it. These functions 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 multibyte 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 libc never change the internal state of the 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. The funcion mblen_l() allows you to provide a different locale, see xlocale(3)

There are 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 null byte (‘\0’).

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

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

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

0   The current encoding is state-independent.

non-zero
    The current encoding is state-dependent.

ERRORS
The mblen() may causes an error in the following case:

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

SEE ALSO
mbrlen(3), mbtowc(3), setlocale(3) xlocale(3)

STANDARDS
The mblen() function conforms to ansiC.