std::islower

 

C++

Language

Standard Library Headers

Freestanding and hosted implementations

Named requirements

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Input/output library

Localizations library

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Filesystem library (C++17)

Technical Specifications

 

Strings library

Null-terminated strings

Byte strings

Multibyte strings

Wide strings

Classes

basic_string

basic_string_view (C++17)

char_traits

 

Null-terminated byte strings

Functions
Character manipulation
isalnum isalpha islower isupper isdigit isxdigit isblank (C++11)	iscntrl isgraph isspace isprint ispunct tolower toupper
Conversions to numeric formats
atof atoiatolatoll (C++11) strtolstrtoll (C++11)	strtoulstrtoull (C++11) strtofstrtodstrtold (C++11)(C++11) strtoimaxstrtouimax (C++11)(C++11)
String manipulation
strcpy
strncpy
strcat
strncat
strxfrm
String examination
strlen strcmp strncmp strcoll strchr strrchr	strspn strcspn strpbrk strstr strtok
Memory manipulation
memchr
memcmp
memset
memcpy
memmove
Miscellaneous
strerror

 

Defined in header <cctype>
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 a nonzero value only for the lowercase letters (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz).

If islower returns a nonzero value, it is guaranteed that iscntrl, isdigit, ispunct, and isspace return zero 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.

Notes

Like all other functions from <cctype>, the behavior of std::islower is undefined if the argument's value is neither representable as unsigned char nor equal to EOF. To use these functions safely with plain chars (or signed chars), the argument should first be converted to unsigned char:

bool my_islower(char ch)
{
    return std::islower(static_cast<unsigned char>(ch));
}

Similarly, they should not be directly used with standard algorithms when the iterator's value type is char or signed char. Instead, convert the value to unsigned char first:

int count_lowers(const std::string& s)
{
    return std::count_if(s.begin(), s.end(), 
                      // static_cast<int(*)(int)>(std::islower)         // wrong
                      // [](int c){ return std::islower(c); }           // wrong
                      // [](char c){ return std::islower(c); }          // wrong
                         [](unsigned char c){ return std::islower(c); } // correct
                        );
}

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <cctype>
#include <clocale>
 
int main()
{
    unsigned char c = '\xe5'; // letter å in ISO-8859-1
 
    std::cout << "islower(\'\\xe5\', default C locale) returned "
               << std::boolalpha << (bool)std::islower(c) << '\n';
 
    std::setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_GB.iso88591");
    std::cout << "islower(\'\\xe5\', ISO-8859-1 locale) returned "
              << std::boolalpha << (bool)std::islower(c) << '\n';
 
}

Output:

islower('\xe5', default C locale) returned false
islower('\xe5', ISO-8859-1 locale) returned true

See also

islower(std::locale)	checks if a character is classified as lowercase by a locale (function template)
iswlower	checks if a wide character is lowercase (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