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 a NULL pointer, the mblen function inspects at most n bytes of the multibyte string starting at s and extracts the next com-
       plete multibyte character. It uses a static anonymous shift state only known 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 >=  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-trivial 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  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.

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.

GNU
								    1999-07-25								  MBLEN(3)