NAME

isalpha, isalpha_l — test for an alphabetic character

SYNOPSIS

#include <ctype.h>

int isalpha(int c);


[CX] int isalpha_l(int c, locale_t locale);

DESCRIPTION

For isalpha(): ^[CX]  The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2024 defers to the ISO C standard.

The isalpha() ^[CX]  and isalpha_l()  functions shall test whether c is a character of class alpha in the current locale, ^[CX]  or in the locale represented by locale, respectively; see XBD 7. Locale.

The c argument is an int, the value of which the application shall ensure is representable as an unsigned char or equal to the value of the macro EOF. If the argument has any other value, the behavior is undefined.

^[CX] The behavior is undefined if the locale argument to isalpha_l() is the special locale object LC_GLOBAL_LOCALE or is not a valid locale object handle.

RETURN VALUE

The isalpha() ^[CX]  and isalpha_l()  functions shall return non-zero if c is an alphabetic character; otherwise, they shall return 0.

ERRORS

No errors are defined.

EXAMPLES

None.

APPLICATION USAGE

To ensure applications portability, especially across natural languages, only these functions and the functions in the reference pages listed in the SEE ALSO section should be used for character classification.

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

isalnum, isblank, iscntrl, isdigit, isgraph, islower, isprint, ispunct, isspace, isupper, isxdigit, setlocale, uselocale

XBD 7. Locale, <ctype.h>, <locale.h>, <stdio.h>

CHANGE HISTORY

First released in Issue 1. Derived from Issue 1 of the SVID.

Issue 6

The normative text is updated to avoid use of the term "must" for application requirements.

Issue 7

The isalpha_l() function is added from The Open Group Technical Standard, 2006, Extended API Set Part 4.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XSH/TC1-2008/0277 [302], XSH/TC1-2008/0278 [283], and XSH/TC1-2008/0279 [283] are applied.