1MBLEN(3)                   Linux Programmer's Manual                  MBLEN(3)
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NAME

6       mblen - determine number of bytes in next multibyte character
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SYNOPSIS

9       #include <stdlib.h>
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11       int mblen(const char *s, size_t n);
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DESCRIPTION

14       If  s  is  not  a NULL pointer, the mblen() function inspects at most n
15       bytes of the multibyte string starting at s and extracts the next  com‐
16       plete  multibyte character. It uses a static anonymous shift state only
17       known to the mblen function. If the multibyte character is not the null
18       wide  character, it returns the number of bytes that were consumed from
19       s. If the multibyte character is the null wide character, it returns 0.
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21       If the n bytes starting at s do not contain a complete multibyte  char‐
22       acter,  mblen() returns -1. This can happen even if n >= MB_CUR_MAX, if
23       the multibyte string contains redundant shift sequences.
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25       If the multibyte string starting at s  contains  an  invalid  multibyte
26       sequence before the next complete character, mblen() also returns -1.
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28       If  s  is  a NULL pointer, the mblen() function resets the shift state,
29       only known to this function, to the initial state, and returns non-zero
30       if the encoding has non-trivial shift state, or zero if the encoding is
31       stateless.
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RETURN VALUE

34       The mblen() function returns the number of bytes parsed from the multi‐
35       byte  sequence  starting  at s, if a non-null wide character was recog‐
36       nized.  It returns 0, if a  null  wide  character  was  recognized.  It
37       returns  -1,  if an invalid multibyte sequence was encountered or if it
38       couldn't parse a complete multibyte character.
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CONFORMING TO

41       C99
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SEE ALSO

44       mbrlen(3)
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NOTES

47       The behaviour of mblen() depends on the LC_CTYPE category of  the  cur‐
48       rent locale.
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50       The function mbrlen() provides a better interface to the same function‐
51       ality.
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55GNU                               1999-07-25                          MBLEN(3)
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