ISALPHA

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2009-03-15
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NAME

isalnum, isalpha, isascii, isblank, iscntrl, isdigit, isgraph, islower, isprint, ispunct, isspace, isupper, isxdigit - character classification routines

SYNOPSIS

#include <ctype.h>

int isalnum(int c);


int isalpha(int c);


int isascii(int c);


int isblank(int c);


int iscntrl(int c);


int isdigit(int c);


int isgraph(int c);


int islower(int c);


int isprint(int c);


int ispunct(int c);


int isspace(int c);


int isupper(int c);


int isxdigit(int c);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

isascii(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE
isblank(): _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600 || _ISOC99_SOURCE; or cc -std=c99

DESCRIPTION

These functions check whether c, which must have the value of an unsigned char or EOF, falls into a certain character class according to the current locale.

isalnum(): checks for an alphanumeric character; it is equivalent to (isalpha(c) || isdigit(c)).
isalpha(): checks for an alphabetic character; in the standard "C" locale, it is equivalent to (isupper(c) || islower(c)). In some locales, there may be additional characters for which isalpha() is true---letters which are neither upper case nor lower case.
isascii(): checks whether c is a 7-bit unsigned char value that fits into the ASCII character set.
isblank(): checks for a blank character; that is, a space or a tab.
iscntrl(): checks for a control character.
isdigit(): checks for a digit (0 through 9).
isgraph(): checks for any printable character except space.
islower(): checks for a lower-case character.
isprint(): checks for any printable character including space.
ispunct(): checks for any printable character which is not a space or an alphanumeric character.
isspace(): checks for white-space characters. In the C and POSIX locales, these are: space, form-feed (aq\faq), newline (aq\naq), carriage return (aq\raq), horizontal tab (aq\taq), and vertical tab (aq\vaq).
isupper(): checks for an uppercase letter.
isxdigit(): checks for a hexadecimal digits, that is, one of
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f A B C D E F.

RETURN VALUE

The values returned are non-zero if the character c falls into the tested class, and a zero value if not.

CONFORMING TO

C99, 4.3BSD. C89 specifies all of these functions except isascii() and isblank(). isascii() is a BSD extension and is also an SVr4 extension. isblank() conforms to POSIX.1-2001 and C99 7.4.1.3. POSIX.1-2008 marks isascii() as obsolete, noting that it cannot be used portably in a localized application.

NOTES

The details of what characters belong into which class depend on the current locale. For example, isupper() will not recognize an A-umlaut (:A) as an uppercase letter in the default C locale.

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.