The LENGTH function

In the following query, the LENGTH function calculates the number of bytes in the combined fname and lname columns for each row where the length of company is greater than 15.

Figure 1. Query

SELECT customer_num,
   LENGTH (fname) + LENGTH (lname) namelength
   FROM customer
   WHERE LENGTH (company) > 15;

Figure 2. Query result

customer_num    namelength 

         101            11
         105            13
         107            11
         112            14
         115            11
         118            10
         119            10
         120            10
         122            12
         124            11
         125            10
         126            12
         127            10
         128            11

Although the LENGTH function might not be useful when you work with DB-Access, it can be important to determine the string length for programs and reports. The LENGTH function returns the clipped length of a CHARACTER or VARCHAR string and the full number of bytes in a TEXT or BYTE string.

HCL Informix® also supports the CHAR_LENGTH function, which returns the number of logical characters in its string argument, rather than the number of bytes. This function is useful in locales where a single logical character might require more than a single byte of storage. For more information about the CHAR_LENGTH function, see the HCL Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax and the HCL Informix GLS User's Guide.