NAME

mblen − get number of bytes in a character

SYNOPSIS

#include <stdlib.h>

int mblen(const char ∗s, size_t n);

DESCRIPTION

If s is not a null pointer, mblen() determines the number of bytes constituting the character pointed to by s. It is equivalent to:

mbtowc((wchar_t ∗)0, s, n);

A call with s as a null pointer causes this function to return 0.  The behavior of this function is affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale. 

RETURN VALUES

If s is a null pointer, mblen() returns a 0 value.  If s is not a null pointer, mblen() either returns 0 (if s points to the null byte), or returns the number of bytes that constitute the character (if the next n or fewer bytes form a valid character), or returns −1 (if they do not form a valid character) and may set errno to indicate the error.  In no case will the value returned be greater than n or the value of the MB_CUR_MAX macro. 

ERRORS

The mblen() function may fail if:

EILSEQ Invalid character sequence is detected. 

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

SEE ALSO

mbstowcs(3C), mbtowc(3C), setlocale(3C), wcstombs(3C), wctomb(3C), attributes(5)

NOTES

The mblen() function can be used safely in a multi-thread application, as long as setlocale(3C) is not being called to change the locale. 

SunOS 5.6  —  Last change: 20 Dec 1996