The LEN function is useful to count the number of characters in a column you specified as the parameter. LEN is short for length. The LEN function returns the number of characters including spaces or any character within that column.

You can use SQL Alias to name the result of the LEN function.

SQL LEN() Syntax

SELECT

LEN(

column_name)

FROM

TABLE

Consider the following table for this exercise.

Users

Firstname

Lastname

Salary

DeptID

John

Smith

1000

1

Mathew

Simon

3000

1

Bill

Steve

2200

1

Amanda

Rogers

1800

2

Steve

Hills

2800

2

Steve

jobs

2400

2

bill

cosby

700

3

Example # 1

SELECT

LEN(

Firstname)

AS

Firstname_Length FROM

users

Result of the Query

Firstname_Length

5

5

5

6

5

4

5

You can also add other column if you wish.

Example # 2

SELECT

Firstname,

Lastname,

LEN(

Firstname)

AS

Firstname_Length FROM

users

Firstname

Lastname

Firstname_Length

John

Smith

5

Mathew

Simon

5

Bill

Steve

5

Amanda

Rogers

6

Steve

Hills

5

Steve

jobs

4

bill

cosby

5