BIT_LENGTH()

Available in: DSQL, PSQL

Added in: 2.0

Changed in: 2.1

Description: Gives the length in bits of the input string. For multi-byte character sets, this may be less than the number of characters times 8 times the “formal” number of bytes per character as found in RDB$CHARACTER_SETS.

Note

With arguments of type CHAR, this function takes the entire formal string length (e.g. the declared length of a field or variable) into account. If you want to obtain the “logical” bit length, not counting the trailing spaces, right-TRIM the argument before passing it to BIT_LENGTH.

Result type: INTEGER

Syntax:

BIT_LENGTH (str)

BLOB support: Since Firebird 2.1, this function fully supports text BLOBs of any length and character set.

Examples:

select bit_length('Hello!') from rdb$database
  -- returns 48

select bit_length(_iso8859_1 'Grüß di!') from rdb$database
  -- returns 64: ü and ß take up one byte each in ISO8859_1

select bit_length
  (cast (_iso8859_1 'Grüß di!' as varchar(24) character set utf8))
from rdb$database
  -- returns 80: ü and ß take up two bytes each in UTF8

select bit_length
  (cast (_iso8859_1 'Grüß di!' as char(24) character set utf8))
from rdb$database
  -- returns 208: all 24 CHAR positions count, and two of them are 16-bit