mblen - Determine Length of Multibyte Character

Syntax

#include <stdlib.h>
int mblen(const char *string, size_t n);

mblen determines the length in bytes of the multibyte character pointed to by string. A maximum of n bytes is examined.

The behavior of mblen is affected by the LC_CTYPE category of the current locale.

If string is NULL, mblen returns 0.

If string is not NULL, mblen returns:

if string points to the null character
The number of bytes comprising the multibyte character
The value -1 if string does not point to a valid multibyte character.

This example uses mblen and mbtowc to convert a multibyte character into a single wide character.

#include <stdio.h>#include <stdlib.h>
#include <wchar.h>
#include <locale.h>

int main(void)
{
   char     mb_string[] = "\x81\x41\x81\xc2" "b";
   int      length;
   wchar_t  widechar;

   if (NULL == setlocale(LC_ALL, "ja_jp.ibm-932")) {
      printf("setlocale failed.\n");
      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
   }
   length = mblen(mb_string, MB_CUR_MAX);
   mbtowc(&widechar, mb_string, length);
   printf("The wide character %lc has length of %d.\n", widechar, length);
   return 0;

   /****************************************************************************
      The output should be similar to :

      The wide character ₧A has length of 2.
   ****************************************************************************/
}

[Back: max - Return Larger of Two Values]

[Next: mbstowcs - Convert Multibyte String to Wide-Character String]