To determine the length of a given string, use the Oracle LENGTH() function. The length includes all trailing blanks if the string's data type is CHAR. This function returns null when a string is empty.

Bytes, not characters, are what LENGTHB counts. LENGTHC uses Unicode complete characters. Codepoints in the Unicode Character Set 2 (UCS2) are used by LENGTH2. LENGTH4 uses UCS4 code points.

Syntax:

{ LENGTH
| LENGTHB
| LENGTHC
| LENGTH2
| LENGTH4
}
(string1)

string1 can be any of the data types CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The return value is of datatype NUMBER. If Any of the following data types may be used for string1: CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The type of the returned value is NUMBER. If char's datatype is CHAR, then the length reports all trailing blanks. This function will return an empty string if string1 is null.

Arguments:

Name	Description	Data Types
string1	The string to return the length for.	LENGTHC, LENGTH2, and LENGTH4 are the only exceptions that allow char to be a CLOB or NCLOB instead of a CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, or NCLOB.

Return Value Type

NUMBER

Applies to

Oracle 12c, Oracle 11g, Oracle 10g, Oracle 9i, Oracle 8i

Examples: Oracle LENGTH function

The following example uses the LENGTH function using a single-byte database character set:

SELECT LENGTH('Oracle database') "Length"
FROM DUAL;

Sample Output:

15