Re: LENGTH function and trailing spaces

Maybe I'm not phrasing this right. If I store 10 characters into a column and 3 of them are trailing spaces and ask for the LENGTH of the column via SQL I get 7. This is because LENGTH() will not include the trailing spaces in the returned value. When I fetch that same column into a 20 byte host variable (say the database column was defined as 15 bytes) I will (I hope) get an indication that only 10 bytes were stored into my application program. The question is, how can I get the number 10 in a SQL statement? Is it possible? This would represent the size I would need to allocate for this 1 column/row (let's make it easy and assume a 1 row 1 column table) in my host program. Is that clearer? Is it something anybody ever needs/wants to do? Jack Parker (jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com) wrote: : > : > : > Length is documented as returning the length of a character column, : > not including the trailing spaces. What method do I use IN SQL to : > get the REAL length of character column? i.e. what size would be : > available to a program that fetched that column : select collength : from syscolumns, systables : where colname = 'xxxxx' : and tabname = 'yyyyyy' : and systables.tabid=syscolumns.tabid : j. : _____________________________________________________________________________ : Jack Parker - Hewlett Packard, BSMC Boise, Idaho, USA : jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com : _____________________________________________________________________________ : "I wave my private parts at your aunties. I burst my pimples at you, : you tiny empty headed wiper of other peoples bottoms." : -MP&THG- French Taunter II : _____________________________________________________________________________ : Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employers. : _____________________________________________________________________________ -- Kirk Bradley Oracle Corporation Mainframe and Integration Technologies Group