isalpha

< c‎ | string‎ | byte
 
C
 
Strings library
 
Null-terminated byte strings
Functions
Character manipulation
Conversions to numeric formats
String manipulation
(C11)
(C11)
(C11)
(C11)
String examination
Memory manipulation
(C11)
(C11)
(C11)
Miscellaneous
(C11)(C11)
 
Defined in header <ctype.h>
int isalpha( int ch );

Checks if the given character is an alphabetic character, i.e. either an uppercase letter (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ), or a lowercase letter (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz).

In locales other than "C", an alphabetic character is a character for which isupper() or islower() returns true or any other character considered alphabetic by the locale. In any case, iscntrl(), isdigit(), ispunct() and isspace() will return false for this character.

The behavior is undefined if the value of ch is not representable as unsigned char or is not equal to EOF.

Parameters

ch - character to classify

Return value

Non-zero value if the character is an alphabetic character, zero otherwise.

Example

Demonstrates the use of isalpha() with different locales (OS-specific).

Run this code
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <locale.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    unsigned char c = '\xdf'; // German letter ß in ISO-8859-1
 
    printf("isalpha('\\xdf') in default C locale returned %d\n", !!isalpha(c));
 
    setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "de_DE.iso88591");
    printf("isalpha('\\xdf') in ISO-8859-1 locale returned %d\n", !!isalpha(c));
}

Output: 

isalpha('\xdf') in default C locale returned 0
isalpha('\xdf') in ISO-8859-1 locale returned 1

References

  • C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
  • 7.4.1.2 The isalpha function (p: 200-201)
  • C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
  • 7.4.1.2 The isalpha function (p: 181-182)
  • C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
  • 4.3.1.2 The isalpha function

See also

(C95)
 checks if a wide character is alphabetic
(function)
ASCII values characters

iscntrl
iswcntrl

isprint
iswprint

isspace
iswspace

isblank
iswblank

isgraph
iswgraph

ispunct
iswpunct

isalnum
iswalnum

isalpha
iswalpha

isupper
iswupper

islower
iswlower

isdigit
iswdigit

isxdigit
iswxdigit

decimal hexadecimal octal
0–8 \x0–\x8 \0–\10 control codes (NUL, etc.) ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 \x9 \11 tab (\t) ≠0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10–13 \xA–\xD \12–\15 whitespaces (\n, \v, \f, \r) ≠0 0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
14–31 \xE–\x1F \16–\37 control codes ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
32 \x20 \40 space 0 ≠0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
33–47 \x21–\x2F \41–\57 !"#$%&'()*+,-./ 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0
48–57 \x30–\x39 \60–\71 0123456789 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0 0 0 0 ≠0 ≠0
58–64 \x3A–\x40 \72–\100 :;<=>?@ 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0
65–70 \x41–\x46 \101–\106 ABCDEF 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0
71–90 \x47–\x5A \107–\132 GHIJKLMNOP
QRSTUVWXYZ 		0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0
91–96 \x5B–\x60 \133–\140 [\]^_` 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0
97–102 \x61–\x66 \141–\146 abcdef 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0
103–122 \x67–\x7A \147–\172 ghijklmnop
qrstuvwxyz 		0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 ≠0 0 0
123–126 \x7B–\x7E \172–\176 {|}~ 0 ≠0 0 0 ≠0 ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0
127 \x7F \177 backspace character (DEL) ≠0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0