strlen, wcslen, _mbslen, _mbslen_l, _mbstrlen, _mbstrlen_l

Article
04/28/2015

Gets the length of a string, by using the current locale or a specified locale. More secure versions of these functions are available; see strnlen, strnlen_s, wcsnlen, wcsnlen_s, _mbsnlen, _mbsnlen_l, _mbstrnlen, _mbstrnlen_l

Important

_mbslen, _mbslen_l, _mbstrlen, and _mbstrlen_l cannot be used in applications that execute in the Windows Runtime. For more information, see CRT functions not supported with /ZW.

size_t strlen(
   const char *str
);
size_t wcslen(
   const wchar_t *str 
);
size_t _mbslen(
   const unsigned char *str 
);
size_t _mbslen_l(
   const unsigned char *str,
   _locale_t locale
);
size_t _mbstrlen(
   const char *str
);
size_t _mbstrlen_l(
   const char *str,
   _locale_t locale
);

Parameters

str
Null-terminated string.
locale
Locale to use.

Return Value

Each of these functions returns the number of characters in str, excluding the terminal NULL. No return value is reserved to indicate an error, except for _mbstrlen and _mbstrlen_l, which return ((size_t)(-1)) if the string contains an invalid multibyte character.

Remarks

strlen interprets the string as a single-byte character string, so its return value is always equal to the number of bytes, even if the string contains multibyte characters. wcslen is a wide-character version of strlen; the argument of wcslen is a wide-character string and the count of characters is in wide (two-byte) characters. wcslen and strlen behave identically otherwise.

Security Note These functions incur a potential threat brought about by a buffer overrun problem. Buffer overrun problems are a frequent method of system attack, resulting in an unwarranted elevation of privilege. For more information, see Avoiding Buffer Overruns.

Generic-Text Routine Mappings

TCHAR.H routine	_UNICODE & _MBCS not defined	_MBCS defined	_UNICODE defined
_tcslen	strlen	strlen	wcslen
_tcsclen	strlen	_mbslen	wcslen
_tcsclen_l	strlen	_mbslen_l	wcslen

_mbslen and _mbslen_l return the number of multibyte characters in a multibyte-character string but they do not test for multibyte-character validity. _mbstrlen and _mbstrlen_l test for multibyte-character validity and recognize multibyte-character sequences. If the string passed to _mbstrlen or _mbstrlen_l contains an invalid multibyte character for the code page, the function returns -1 and sets errno to EILSEQ.

The output value is affected by the setting of the LC_CTYPE category setting of the locale; see setlocale for more information. The versions of these functions without the _l suffix use the current locale for this locale-dependent behavior; the versions with the _l suffix are identical except that they use the locale parameter passed in instead. For more information, see Locale.

Requirements

Routine	Required header
strlen	<string.h>
wcslen	<string.h> or <wchar.h>
_mbslen, _mbslen_l	<mbstring.h>
_mbstrlen, _mbstrlen_l	<stdlib.h>

For additional compatibility information, see Compatibility.

Example

// crt_strlen.c
// Determine the length of a string. For the multi-byte character
// example to work correctly, the Japanese language support for
// non-Unicode programs must be enabled by the operating system.


#include <string.h>
#include <locale.h>

int main()
{
   char* str1 = "Count.";
   wchar_t* wstr1 = L"Count.";
   char * mbstr1;
   char * locale_string;

   // strlen gives the length of single-byte character string
   printf("Length of '%s' : %d\n", str1, strlen(str1) );

   // wstrlen gives the length of a wide character string
   wprintf(L"Length of '%s' : %d\n", wstr1, wcslen(wstr1) );

   // A multibyte string: [A] [B] [C] [katakana A] [D] [\0]
   // in Code Page 932. For this example to work correctly,
   // the Japanese language support must be enabled by the
   // operating system.
   mbstr1 = "ABC" "\x83\x40" "D";

   locale_string = setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "Japanese_Japan");

   if (locale_string == NULL)
   {
      printf("Japanese locale not enabled. Exiting.\n");
      exit(1);
   }
   else
   {
      printf("Locale set to %s\n", locale_string);
   }

   // _mbslen will recognize the Japanese multibyte character if the
   // current locale used by the operating system is Japanese
   printf("Length of '%s' : %d\n", mbstr1, _mbslen(mbstr1) );

   // _mbstrlen will recognize the Japanese multibyte character
   // since the CRT locale is set to Japanese even if the OS locale
   // isnot. 
   printf("Length of '%s' : %d\n", mbstr1, _mbstrlen(mbstr1) );
   printf("Bytes in '%s' : %d\n", mbstr1, strlen(mbstr1) );   
  
}

Length of 'Count.' : 6
Length of 'Count.' : 6
Length of 'ABCァD' : 5
Length of 'ABCァD' : 5
Bytes in 'ABCァD' : 6

.NET Framework Equivalent

System::String::Length

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