SQLite 3 reference · String Functions

SQLite LENGTH() Function

Return the number of characters in a string, or the number of bytes in a BLOB. NULL gives NULL.

SQLite 3

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Syntax

length(X)

Parameter	Description
`X`	A string, number or BLOB.

An integer, or NULL.

Longest namesTry it yourself

SELECT name, length(name) AS letters
FROM customers
ORDER BY letters DESC
LIMIT 3;

Output

name | letters
Yukihiro Matsumoto | 18
Margaret Hamilton | 17
Katherine Johnson | 17

Characters vs bytes, and NULLTry it yourself

SELECT length('café') AS chars, octet_length('café') AS bytes, length(NULL) AS null_input;

Output

chars | bytes | null_input
4 | 5 | NULL

For numbers, length() measures their text form: length(3.50) is 3 because the value is stored as 3.5.

OCTET_LENGTH() · Return the number of bytes a string takes in the database encoding (usually UTF-8), not the number of characters.
SUBSTR() · Return part of a string starting at a 1-based position, with an optional length. Negative starts count from the end.
SQL String Functions · tutorial

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