SDL_utf8strlen(3)

✨ SDL_utf8strlen ✨

okay bestie, so this one's from the SDL3 functions corner of the SDL3 man pages, and it's literally just: how many characters are in this string, not how many bytes. codepoint counting, no cap. 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

SDL_utf8strlen — count the number of codepoints in a UTF-8 string.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <SDL3/SDL_stdinc.h>

size_t SDL_utf8strlen(const char *str);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the tea: it counts the _codepoints_, not the _bytes_, in str, and it does not count the null terminator. periodt.

If you actually want the byte count instead, girl, go use SDL_strlen(). different function, different vibe.

And because this one is doing real Unicode work, it expects your strings to be well-formed UTF-8 — not just a null-terminated pile of random bytes. Any bytes that aren't valid UTF-8 get treated as Unicode character U+FFFD (REPLACEMENT CHARACTER), so heads up: a malformed or incomplete UTF-8 sequence might bump your count up by several replacement characters. like, surprise! 😭 it's giving "one broken char, five codepoints."

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💖 FUNCTION PARAMETERS 💖

• str — the null-terminated UTF-8 string to read. Must not be NULL. do not pass NULL, bestie, i'm begging. 🙈

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⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

Returns the length (in codepoints, excluding the null terminator) of src. yep, that's what it says — src. we love a lil naming moment. 🫶

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🌈 THREAD SAFETY 🌈

It is safe to call this function from any thread. go off, multithreaded queen. 👑

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🧚 AVAILABILITY 🧚

This function is available since SDL 3.2.0.

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🍓 SEE ALSO 🍓

• SDL_utf8strnlen(3)
• SDL_strlen(3)

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and that's the whole page, no crumbs left 💜 — brought to you by Simple Directmedia Layer, SDL 3.4.18, and this lil SDL_utf8strlen(3) moment. mwah, go count some codepoints. ✨