mblen - determine number of bytes in next multibyte char
acter
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 func
tion. 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 character, mblen returns -1. This can happen
even if n >= 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 non-zero if the encoding has non-triv
ial 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
ISO/ANSI C, UNIX98
SEE ALSO
mbrlen(3)
NOTES
The behaviour of mblen depends on the LC_CTYPE category of
the current locale.
The function mbrlen provides a better interface to the
same functionality.
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