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DATALENGTH (SQL)

A function that returns the number of characters in an expression.

Synopsis

DATALENGTH(expression)

Description

The DATALENGTH returns the number of characters used for an expression.

The DATALENGTH, CHAR_LENGTH, and CHARACTER_LENGTH functions are identical. Use of the CHAR_LENGTH function is recommended for new code. DATALENGTH is provided for TSQL compatibility. Refer to CHAR_LENGTH for further details.

Arguments

expression

An expression, which can be the name of a column, a string literal, or the result of another scalar function. The underlying data type can be a character type (such as CHAR or VARCHAR), a numeric, or a data stream.

DATALENGTH returns the INTEGER data type.

See Also

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