PLSQL | LENGTH Function

The PLSQL LENGTH function is used for returning the length of the specified string, in other words, it returns the length of char. The char accepted by the LENGTH function in PLSQL can be of any of the datatypes such as CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB.

The value returned by the LENGTH function is of datatype NUMBER. If char sent in the parameter has datatype CHAR, then the length includes all trailing blanks. If char is null, then this function returns null.

Syntax:

LENGTH( string )

Parameters Used:

string – It is used to specify the string whose length you want to find out.

Supported Versions of Oracle/PLSQL:

1. Oracle 12c
2. Oracle 11g
3. Oracle 10g
4. Oracle 9i
5. Oracle 8i

Example-1:

DECLARE 
   Test_String string(20) := NULL;
   
   
BEGIN 
   dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(Test_String)); 
   
END;    

Output:

NULL 

Example-2:

DECLARE 
   Test_String string(20) := '';
   
   
BEGIN 
   dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(Test_String)); 
   
END;    

Output:

NULL 

Example-3:

DECLARE 
   Test_String string(20) := ' ';
   
   
BEGIN 
   dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(Test_String)); 
   
END;    

Output:

1 

Example-4:

DECLARE 
   Test_String string(20) := 'Geeksforgeeks';
   
   
BEGIN 
   dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(Test_String)); 
   
END;     

Output:

13 

Example-5:

DECLARE 
   Test_String string(20) := ' Geeksforgeeks ';
   
   
BEGIN 
   dbms_output.put_line(LENGTH(Test_String)); 
   
END;     

Output:

15