C library function - mblen()

Description

The C library function int mblen(const char *str, size_t n) returns the length of a multibyte character pointed to by the argument str.

Declaration

Following is the declaration for mblen() function.

int mblen(const char *str, size_t n)

Parameters

• str -- This is the pointer to the first byte of a multibyte character.

• n -- This is the maximum number of bytes to be checked for character length.

Return Value

The mblen() function returns the number of bytes parsed from the multibyte sequence starting at str, if a non-null wide character was recognized. It returns 0, if a null wide character was recognized. It returns -1, if an invalid multibyte sequence was encountered or if it could not parse a complete multibyte character.

Example

The following example shows the usage of mblen() function.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int main()
{
   int len;
   char *pmbnull  = NULL;
   char *pmb = (char *)malloc( MB_CUR_MAX );
   wchar_t *pwc = L"Hi";
   wchar_t *pwcs = (wchar_t *)malloc( sizeof( wchar_t ));

   printf("Converting to multibyte string\n");
   len = wcstombs( pmb, pwc, MB_CUR_MAX);
   printf("Characters converted %d\n", len);
   printf("Hex value of first multibyte character: %#.4x\n", pmb);
   
   len = mblen( pmb, MB_CUR_MAX );
   printf( "Length in bytes of multibyte character %x: %u\n", pmb, len );
   
   pmb = NULL;
   
   len = mblen( pmb, MB_CUR_MAX );
   printf( "Length in bytes of multibyte character %x: %u\n", pmb, len );
   
   return(0);
}

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result:

Converting to multibyte string
Characters converted 1
Hex value of first multibyte character: 0x168c6010
Length in bytes of multibyte character 168c6010: 1
Length in bytes of multibyte character 0: 0