How is the len function used in SQL?

1 year ago
Ava Mitchell
1 minute

The LEN function in SQL is used to return the length of a string. It takes a string as a parameter and returns the number of characters in that string. It can be used to calculate the length of a string.

For example, regarding the table and data below:

CREATE TABLE students (
  id INT,
  name VARCHAR(50)
);

INSERT INTO students (id, name)
VALUES (1, 'John Doe'),
       (2, 'Jane Smith'),
       (3, 'Bob Johnson');

You can use the LEN function to get the length of each student’s name.

SELECT name, LEN(name) AS name_length
FROM students;

The result will be:

name         | name_length
-------------------------
John Doe     |     8
Jane Smith   |    10
Bob Johnson  |    11

In this example, the LEN function is used to calculate the number of characters in each student’s name and returns it as a column called name_length.

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