SQL Reference

LENGTH

>>-LENGTH--(--expression--)------------------------------------><
 

The schema is SYSIBM.

The LENGTH function returns the length of a value.

The argument can be an expression that returns a value of any built-in data type.

The result of the function is a large integer. If the argument can be null, the result can be null; if the argument is null, the result is the null value.

The result is the length of the argument. The length does not include the null indicator byte of column arguments that allow null values. The length of strings includes blanks but does not include the length control field of varying-length strings. The length of a varying-length string is the actual length, not the maximum length.

The length of a graphic string is the number of DBCS characters. The length of all other values is the number of bytes used to represent the value:

• 2 for small integer
• 4 for large integer
• (p/2)+1 for decimal numbers with precision p
• The length of the string for binary strings
• The length of the string for character strings
• 4 for single-precision floating-point
• 8 for double-precision floating-point
• 4 for date
• 3 for time
• 10 for timestamp

Examples:

• Assume the host variable ADDRESS is a varying length character string with a value of '895 Don Mills Road'.

    LENGTH(:ADDRESS)
  

  Returns the value 18.

• Assume that START_DATE is a column of type DATE.

    LENGTH(START_DATE)
  

  Returns the value 4.

• This example returns the value 10.

    LENGTH(CHAR(START_DATE, EUR))