Question

/* utf-8: 0xc0, 0xe0, 0xf0, 0xf8, 0xfc */
static unsigned char _mblen_table_utf8[] = 
{
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,
    2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,
    2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2,
    3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3,
    4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 1, 1
};

I bet it has something to do with the encodings,

but how exactly it works?

UPDATE

        while (str < ptr)
        {
            j = mblen[(*str)];
            tree_nput(r->tree, cr, sizeof(struct rule_item), str, j);
            str += j;
        }
    }   

Answer 1

Because a character in a multibyte string has a variable length, this table maps each character to a length.

The last 64 characters are wider than one byte, having lengths of 2 to 6.

The usage would be something like that:

unsigned char current_char = *mbstr;

for (i = 0; i < _mblen_table_utf8[current_char]; i++) {
  /* treat *mbstr++ as a part of the current character */
}