Returns the number of characters in the specified string.

Syntax

LENGTH( string-expression )

Parameters

Remarks

Use this function to determine the length of a string. For example, specify a column name for string-expression to determine the length of values in the column.

If the string contains multibyte characters, and the proper collation is being used, LENGTH returns the number of characters, not the number of bytes. If the string is of data type BINARY, the LENGTH function behaves as the BYTE_LENGTH function.

This function supports NCHAR inputs and/or outputs.

See also

• BYTE_LENGTH function [String]
• International languages and character sets
• String functions

Standards and compatibility

Example

The following statement returns the value 9.

SELECT LENGTH( 'chocolate' );