confstr.3, strcasecmp.3, strcat.3, strcmp.3, strcpy.3, strdup.3, strftime.3, strlen.3, strnlen.3, strpbrk.3, strspn.3, strtok.3, strxfrm.3: Clarify that these functions operate on bytes, not (wide) characters

Change 'character(s)' to 'byte(s)' to make clear that these
functions operate on bytes, not wide / UTF8 characters.
(POSIX uses 'byte(s)' similarly, to make this point.)

Reported-by: Andries E. Brouwer <Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl>
Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

man3/confstr.3

@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ copies the value of the string to
 .I buf
 truncated to
 .I len \- 1
-characters if necessary, with a null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) as terminator.
+bytes if necessary, with a null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) as terminator.
 This can be detected by comparing the return value of
 .BR confstr ()
 against

man3/strcasecmp.3

@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ respectively, to be less than, to match, or be greater than \fIs2\fP.
 The
 .BR strncasecmp ()
 function is similar, except it only compares
-the first \fIn\fP characters of \fIs1\fP.
+the first \fIn\fP bytes of \fIs1\fP.
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strcasecmp ()

man3/strcat.3

@@ -52,18 +52,18 @@ The
 .BR strncat ()
 function is similar, except that
 .IP * 3
-it will use at most \fIn\fP characters from \fIsrc\fP; and
+it will use at most \fIn\fP bytes from \fIsrc\fP; and
 .IP *
 \fIsrc\fP does not need to be null-terminated if it contains
-\fIn\fP or more characters.
+\fIn\fP or more bytes.
 .PP
 As with
 .BR strcat (),
 the resulting string in \fIdest\fP is always null-terminated.
 .PP
-If \fIsrc\fP contains \fIn\fP or more characters,
+If \fIsrc\fP contains \fIn\fP or more bytes,
 .BR strncat ()
-writes \fIn+1\fP characters to \fIdest\fP (\fIn\fP
+writes \fIn+1\fP bytes to \fIdest\fP (\fIn\fP
 from \fIsrc\fP plus the terminating null byte).
 Therefore, the size of \fIdest\fP must be at least
 \fIstrlen(dest)+n+1\fP.

man3/strcmp.3

@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ to match, or be greater than \fIs2\fP.
 The
 .BR strncmp ()
 function is similar, except it only compares
-the first (at most) \fIn\fP characters of \fIs1\fP and \fIs2\fP.
+the first (at most) \fIn\fP bytes of \fIs1\fP and \fIs2\fP.
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strcmp ()

man3/strcpy.3

@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ the length of \fIsrc\fP, then
 can be used.
 
 If there is no terminating null byte in the first \fIn\fP
-characters of \fIsrc\fP,
+bytes of \fIsrc\fP,
 .BR strncpy ()
 produces an unterminated string in \fIdest\fP.
 Programmers often prevent this mistake by forcing termination

man3/strdup.3

@@ -86,9 +86,9 @@ and can be freed with
 The
 .BR strndup ()
 function is similar, but only copies at most
-\fIn\fP characters.
+\fIn\fP bytes.
 If \fIs\fP is longer than \fIn\fP, only \fIn\fP
-characters are copied, and a terminating null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) is added.
+bytes are copied, and a terminating null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) is added.
 
 .BR strdupa ()
 and

man3/strftime.3

@@ -308,7 +308,7 @@ See also
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strftime ()
-function returns the number of characters placed
+function returns the number of bytes placed
 in the array \fIs\fP, not including the terminating null byte,
 provided the string, including the terminating null byte, fits.
 Otherwise, it returns 0, and the contents of the array is undefined.

man3/strlen.3

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 .\"     Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
 .\"     386BSD man pages
 .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 18:02:26 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
-.TH STRLEN 3  2011-09-28 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.TH STRLEN 3  2012-05-04 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
 .SH NAME
 strlen \- calculate the length of a string
 .SH SYNOPSIS
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ function calculates the length of the string
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strlen ()
-function returns the number of characters in \fIs\fP.
+function returns the number of bytes in the string \fIs\fP.
 .SH "CONFORMING TO"
 SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89, C99.
 .SH "SEE ALSO"

man3/strnlen.3

@@ -39,20 +39,20 @@ _GNU_SOURCE
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 The
 .BR strnlen ()
-function returns the number of characters in the string
+function returns the number of bytes in the string
 pointed to by \fIs\fP, excluding the terminating null bye (\(aq\\0\(aq),
 but at most \fImaxlen\fP.
 In doing this,
 .BR strnlen ()
 looks only at the first
-\fImaxlen\fP characters at \fIs\fP and never beyond \fIs+maxlen\fP.
+\fImaxlen\fP bytes at \fIs\fP and never beyond \fIs+maxlen\fP.
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strnlen ()
 function returns \fIstrlen(s)\fP, if that is less than
 \fImaxlen\fP, or \fImaxlen\fP
 if there is no null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq) among the first
-\fImaxlen\fP characters pointed to by \fIs\fP.
+\fImaxlen\fP bytes pointed to by \fIs\fP.
 .SH "CONFORMING TO"
 POSIX.1-2008.
 .SH "SEE ALSO"

man3/strpbrk.3

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 18:01:24 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
 .TH STRPBRK 3  2010-09-20 "" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
 .SH NAME
-strpbrk \- search a string for any of a set of characters
+strpbrk \- search a string for any of a set of bytes
 .SH SYNOPSIS
 .nf
 .B #include <string.h>
@@ -38,13 +38,13 @@ strpbrk \- search a string for any of a set of characters
 The
 .BR strpbrk ()
 function locates the first occurrence in the
-string \fIs\fP of any of the characters in the string \fIaccept\fP.
+string \fIs\fP of any of the bytes in the string \fIaccept\fP.
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strpbrk ()
-function returns a pointer to the character in
-\fIs\fP that matches one of the characters in \fIaccept\fP, or NULL
-if no such character is found.
+function returns a pointer to the byte in
+\fIs\fP that matches one of the bytes in \fIaccept\fP, or NULL
+if no such byte is found.
 .SH "CONFORMING TO"
 SVr4, 4.3BSD, C89, C99.
 .SH "SEE ALSO"

man3/strspn.3

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 .\" Modified Sat Jul 24 17:57:50 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
 .TH STRSPN 3  2010-09-20 "" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
 .SH NAME
-strspn, strcspn \- search a string for a set of characters
+strspn, strcspn \- search a string for a set of bytes
 .SH SYNOPSIS
 .nf
 .B #include <string.h>
@@ -39,25 +39,25 @@ strspn, strcspn \- search a string for a set of characters
 .SH DESCRIPTION
 The
 .BR strspn ()
-function calculates the length of the initial
-segment of \fIs\fP which consists entirely of characters in
+function calculates the length (in bytes) of the initial
+segment of \fIs\fP which consists entirely of bytes in
 \fIaccept\fP.
 .PP
 The
 .BR strcspn ()
 function calculates the length of the initial
-segment of \fIs\fP which consists entirely of characters not in
+segment of \fIs\fP which consists entirely of bytes not in
 \fIreject\fP.
 .SH "RETURN VALUE"
 The
 .BR strspn ()
-function returns the number of characters in
-the initial segment of \fIs\fP which consist only of characters
+function returns the number of bytes in
+the initial segment of \fIs\fP which consist only of bytes
 from \fIaccept\fP.
 .PP
 The
 .BR strcspn ()
-function returns the number of characters in
+function returns the number of bytes in
 the initial segment of \fIs\fP which are not in the string
 \fIreject\fP.
 .SH "CONFORMING TO"

man3/strtok.3

@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ specified in \fIstr\fP.
 In each subsequent call that should parse the same string,
 \fIstr\fP should be NULL.
 
-The \fIdelim\fP argument specifies a set of characters that
+The \fIdelim\fP argument specifies a set of bytes that
 delimit the tokens in the parsed string.
 The caller may specify different strings in \fIdelim\fP in successive
 calls that parse the same string.
@@ -67,14 +67,14 @@ Each call to
 .BR strtok ()
 returns a pointer to a
 null-terminated string containing the next token.
-This string does not include the delimiting character.
+This string does not include the delimiting byte.
 If no more tokens are found,
 .BR strtok ()
 returns NULL.
 
-A sequence of two or more contiguous delimiter characters in
+A sequence of two or more contiguous delimiter bytes in
 the parsed string is considered to be a single delimiter.
-Delimiter characters at the start or end of the string are ignored.
+Delimiter bytes at the start or end of the string are ignored.
 Put another way: the tokens returned by
 .BR strtok ()
 are always nonempty strings.
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ These functions modify their first argument.
 .IP *
 These functions cannot be used on constant strings.
 .IP *
-The identity of the delimiting character is lost.
+The identity of the delimiting byte is lost.
 .IP *
 The
 .BR strtok ()
@@ -136,9 +136,9 @@ The program below uses nested loops that employ
 .BR strtok_r ()
 to break a string into a two-level hierarchy of tokens.
 The first command-line argument specifies the string to be parsed.
-The second argument specifies the delimiter character(s)
+The second argument specifies the delimiter byte(s)
 to be used to separate that string into "major" tokens.
-The third argument specifies the delimiter character(s)
+The third argument specifies the delimiter byte(s)
 to be used to separate the "major" tokens into subtokens.
 .PP
 An example of the output produced by this program is the following:

man3/strxfrm.3

@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ been transformed with
 is the same as the result of
 .BR strcoll (3)
 on the two strings before their transformation.
-The first \fIn\fP characters of the transformed string are placed in
+The first \fIn\fP bytes of the transformed string are placed in
 \fIdest\fP.
 The transformation is based on the program's current
 locale for category \fBLC_COLLATE\fP.  (See