Oracle® Database SQL Language Reference 11g Release 2 (11.2) Part Number E10592-04 |
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Syntax
length::=
Purpose
The LENGTH
functions return the length of char
. LENGTH
calculates length using characters as defined by the input character set. LENGTHB
uses bytes instead of characters. LENGTHC
uses Unicode complete characters. LENGTH2
uses UCS2 code points. LENGTH4
uses UCS4 code points.
char
can be any of the data types CHAR
, VARCHAR2
, NCHAR
, NVARCHAR2
, CLOB
, or NCLOB
. The return value is of data type NUMBER
. If char
has data type CHAR
, then the length includes all trailing blanks. If char
is null, then this function returns null.
Restriction on LENGTHB The LENGTHB
function is supported for single-byte LOBs only. It cannot be used with CLOB
and NCLOB
data in a multibyte character set.
Examples
The following example uses the LENGTH
function using a single-byte database character set:
SELECT LENGTH('CANDIDE') "Length in characters" FROM DUAL; Length in characters -------------------- 7
The next example assumes a double-byte database character set.
SELECT LENGTHB ('CANDIDE') "Length in bytes" FROM DUAL; Length in bytes --------------- 14