MBLEN(3)		   Linux Programmers Manual		     MBLEN(3)



NAME
       mblen - determine number of bytes in next multibyte character

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       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 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  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 nontrivial shift state, or zero if the encoding is
       stateless.

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
       couldnt parse a complete multibyte character.

CONFORMING TO
       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
       This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of	the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU				  1999-07-25			      MBLEN(3)