Len Function

Description

Returns a Long containing the number of characters in a string or the number of bytes required to store a variable.

Syntax

Len(string | varname)

The Len function syntax has these parts:

Part	Description

string	Any valid string expression. If string contains Null, Null is returned.
Varname	Any valid variable name. If varname contains Null, Null is returned. If varname is a Variant, Len treats it the same as a String and always returns the number of characters it contains.

Remarks

One (and only one) of the two possible arguments must be specified. With user-defined types, Len returns the size as it will be written to the file.

Note Use the LenB function with byte data contained in a string. Instead of returning the number of characters in a string, LenB returns the number of bytes used to represent that string. With user-defined types, LenB returns the in-memory size, including any padding between elements.

Note Len may not be able to determine the actual number of storage bytes required when used with variable-length strings in user-defined data types.

See Also

Data type summary, InStr function.

Example

This example uses the Len function to return the number of characters in a string or the number of bytes required to store a variable. The Type...End Type block defining CustomerRecord must be preceded by the keyword Private if it appears in a class module. In a standard module, a Type statement can be Public.

Type CustomerRecord                    ' Define user-defined type.
    ID As Integer                        ' Place this definition in a 
    Name As String * 10                ' standard module.
    Address As String * 30
End Type

Dim Customer As CustomerRecord    ' Declare variables.
Dim MyInt As Integer, MyCur As Currency
Dim MyString, MyLen
MyString = "Hello World"                ' Initialize variable.
MyLen = Len(MyInt)                        ' Returns 2.
MyLen = Len(Customer)                    ' Returns 42.
MyLen = Len(MyString)                    ' Returns 11.
MyLen = Len(MyCur)                        ' Returns 8.