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242. CHAR_LENGTH Function

Learn how to calculate the number of characters in a string.

📘 Lesson 242 of 728 ⏱ 8 min 🎯 Intermediate

The CHAR_LENGTH function returns the number of characters contained in a string. It is defined around character count rather than byte count.

Character length becomes important when working with multilingual data, validation rules, and text fields containing different character encodings.

Check the number of characters in a customer address.

SQL 
SELECT
    Address,
    CHAR_LENGTH(Address) AS AddressLength
FROM Customers;

CHAR_LENGTH is useful in data validation, multilingual applications, text analysis, and database quality checks.

  • CHAR_LENGTH counts characters.
  • It is useful for text validation.
  • It can be useful with multilingual data.
  • It differs conceptually from byte length.
  • Database support varies.
What does CHAR_LENGTH return?

CHAR_LENGTH returns the number of characters in a string.

Why can character length matter?

Character length is important when text contains different character sets or multilingual data.

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