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



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 NULL, 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	 char-
       acter,  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 NULL, 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	state-
       less.

RETURN VALUE
       The mblen() function returns the number of bytes parsed from the multi-
       byte sequence starting at s, if a non-null wide	character  was	recog-
       nized.	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
       For   an	  explanation	of   the  terms	 used  in  this	 section,  see
       attributes(7).

       +----------+---------------+----------------+
       |Interface | Attribute	  | Value	   |
       +----------+---------------+----------------+
       |mblen()	  | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe race |
       +----------+---------------+----------------+
CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 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 func-
       tionality.

SEE ALSO
       mbrlen(3)

COLOPHON
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       description  of	the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
       latest	 version    of	  this	  page,	   can	   be	  found	    at
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GNU				  2015-08-08			      MBLEN(3)