In this article, I will explain how to find the length of the text of a field in a table. For this purpose we can use the LEN function in SQL Server 2012. The Length Function in SQL Server 2012 returns the number of characters in a string. The Length function does not count any blanks after the last character (trailing blanks).
The following examples clearly show the concept of the Length function:
LEN Function Example |
Output |
SELECTLEN('Rahul') |
5 |
SELECTLEN('Rahul ') |
5 |
SELECTLEN(' Rahul') |
7 |
Len() function in SQL 2012
Syntax
SELECT LEN(column_name) FROM table_name
Let's have a look at a practical example. We create a table.
Creating table
CREATE TABLE SHARMA(
id INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
first_name VARCHAR(10),
last_name VARCHAR(10),
salary DECIMAL(10,2),
city VARCHAR(20),
)
Now insert some values in the table.
INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (2, 'Mohit', 'sharm',4789,'Agra');
GO
INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (4, 'Rahul' , 'sharm', 5567,'London');
GO
INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (5, 'prabhat', 'kumar', 4467,'Bombay');
GO
INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (6, 'ramu', 'kksingh', 3456, 'jk');
GO
INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (8, 'MOHIT', 'SHARMA', 5000, 'KASGANJ');
select * from SHARMA
The table look like this:
Figure 1
Now we want to select the length of the values in the "first_name" column above.
We use the following SELECT statement with the LEN Function:
SELECT LEN(first_name) as Lengthoffirst_name FROM table_name
The result look like this:
Figure 2
We can use the LEN Function with a Where condition:
SELECT LEN(first_name)as Lengthoffirst_name FROM sharma
where ID = 8
Figure 3