utf8kind(3)

💅 utf8kind(3) — Arcan Lua API

okay bestie, buckle up because we're talking about utf8kind from the Arcan Lua API and honestly? she's a little gremlin but she's ours 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

utf8kind — a quick little vibe check on an offset into a string 🔍

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

state
utf8kind( offset )

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like. built-in support for internationalized strings is fairly rudimentary in this whole setup 😭 and yeah, the render_text class of functions does handle UTF-8 internally, but no such support has been mapped into the built-in LUA VM. none. zero. nada. 💀

that's where this function comes in — she's a quick helper to figure out if you're about to corrupt a UTF-8 string or not 🙈 lowkey a lifesaver.

the state values you get back are:

• 0 — 7bit character
• 1 — start of char
• 2 — middle of char

that's the whole menu, bestie. three little numbers and a dream ✨

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🎀 NOTES 🎀

1. okay so real talk — this is very primitive and was added before we included the bitopts- Lua JIT extension into the codebase 👑 it does not directly help for validating UTF-8 sequences, only for avoiding obvious truncation. so don't come for her, she's doing her best 🫶

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🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

function utf8kind0()
      a = "åäö";
      for i=1,#a do
            print(utf8kind(a[i]));
      end
end

look at her go 🕺 iconic behaviour, no notes 💅

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⭐ sign-off ⭐

and that's the whole page, bestie — shipped from the system corner of things, dated October 2026, and yeah she's still utf8kind(3) in case you forgot already 💖 mwah, go forth and don't truncate your strings 🧚‍♀️🌸