islower

< 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 islower( int ch );

Checks if the given character is classified as a lowercase character according to the current C locale. In the default "C" locale, islower returns true only for the lowercase letters (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz).

If islower returns true, it is guaranteed that iscntrl, isdigit, ispunct, and isspace return false for the same character in the same C locale.

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

Parameters

ch - character to classify

Return value

Non-zero value if the character is a lowercase letter, zero otherwise.


Example

Run this code
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <locale.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    unsigned char c = '\xe5'; // letter å in ISO-8859-1
    printf("In the default C locale, \\xe5 is %slowercase\n",
           islower(c) ? "" : "not " );
    setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_GB.iso88591");
    printf("In ISO-8859-1 locale, \\xe5 is %slowercase\n",
           islower(c) ? "" : "not " );
}

Output: 

In the default C locale, \xe5 is not lowercase
In ISO-8859-1 locale, \xe5 is lowercase

References

  • C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
  • 7.4.1.7 The islower function (p: 202)
  • C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
  • 7.4.1.7 The islower function (p: 183)
  • C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
  • 4.3.1.6 The islower function

See also

(C95)
 checks if a wide character is an lowercase character
(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