length()

Returns the number of characters in the string.

Signature

length ( text ) → integer

Examples

SELECT length('jose');

Run against PostgreSQL 18.6 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

In other engines

PostgreSQL	length
MySQL	CHAR_LENGTH(x) — LENGTH() counts bytes
SQL Server	LEN(x), which ignores trailing spaces
Oracle	LENGTH(x)
SQLite	length(x)

Two traps in one row. MySQL's LENGTH counts bytes, so a Japanese string is three times longer than it looks. SQL Server's LEN drops trailing spaces, so LEN('a ') is 1 — DATALENGTH is the one that does not.

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