CHAR_LENGTH

Return the length of a string in characters. This function counts the number of characters in the string, treating multi-byte characters as single units.

Syntax

CHAR_LENGTH(str)
CHARACTER_LENGTH(str)

Description

Returns the length of the given string argument, measured in characters. A multi-byte character counts as a single character. This means that for a string containing five two-byte characters, LENGTH() (or OCTET_LENGTH() in Oracle mode) returns 10, whereas CHAR_LENGTH() returns 5. If the argument is NULL, it returns NULL.

If the argument is not a string value, it is converted into a string.

It is synonymous with the CHARACTER_LENGTH() function.

Examples

SELECT CHAR_LENGTH('MariaDB');
+------------------------+
| CHAR_LENGTH('MariaDB') |
+------------------------+
|                      7 |
+------------------------+

When Oracle mode is not set:

SELECT CHAR_LENGTH('π'), LENGTH('π'), LENGTHB('π'), OCTET_LENGTH('π');
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+
| CHAR_LENGTH('π')  | LENGTH('π')  | LENGTHB('π')  | OCTET_LENGTH('π')  |
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+
|                 1 |            2 |             2 |                  2 |
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+

In Oracle mode:

SELECT CHAR_LENGTH('π'), LENGTH('π'), LENGTHB('π'), OCTET_LENGTH('π');
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+
| CHAR_LENGTH('π')  | LENGTH('π')  | LENGTHB('π')  | OCTET_LENGTH('π')  |
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+
|                 1 |            1 |             2 |                  2 |
+-------------------+--------------+---------------+--------------------+

See Also

• LENGTH()

• LENGTHB()

• OCTET_LENGTH()

• Oracle mode

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