LEN Function in SQL Server 2012

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');

INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (4, 'Rahul' , 'sharm', 5567,'London');

INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (5, 'prabhat', 'kumar', 4467,'Bombay');

INSERT INTO SHARMA VALUES (6, 'ramu', 'kksingh', 3456, 'jk');

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