ref: 0644aa11c120a581eec1d47c66208e08b946ec08
dir: /man/2/sys-byte2char/
.TH SYS-BYTE2CHAR 2 .SH NAME byte2char, char2byte \- convert between bytes and characters .SH SYNOPSIS .EX include "sys.m"; sys := load Sys Sys->PATH; byte2char: fn(buf: array of byte, n: int): (int, int, int); char2byte: fn(c: int, buf: array of byte, n: int): int; .EE .SH DESCRIPTION .B Byte2char converts a byte sequence to one Unicode character. .I Buf is an array of bytes and .I n is the index of the first byte to examine in the array. The returned tuple, say .BI ( c , .IB length , .IB status )\f1, specifies the result of the translation: .I c is the resulting Unicode character, .I status is non-zero if the bytes are a valid UTF sequence and zero otherwise, and .I length is set to the number of bytes consumed by the translation. If the input sequence is not long enough to determine its validity, .B byte2char consumes zero bytes; if the input sequence is otherwise invalid, .B byte2char consumes one input byte and generates an error character .RB ( Sys->UTFerror , .BR 16r80 ), which prints in most fonts as a boxed question mark. .PP .B Char2byte performs the inverse of .BR byte2char . It translates a Unicode character, .IR c , to a UTF byte sequence, which is placed in successive bytes starting at .IR buf [\c .IR n ]. The longest UTF sequence for a single Unicode character is .B Sys->UTFmax (4) bytes. If the translation succeeds, .B char2byte returns the number of bytes placed in the buffer. If the buffer is too small to hold the result, .B char2byte returns zero and leaves the array unchanged. .SH SOURCE .B /libinterp/runt.c .SH SEE ALSO .IR sys-intro (2), .IR sys-utfbytes (2), .IR utf (6) .SH DIAGNOSTICS A run-time error occurs if .I n exceeds the bounds of the array.