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Count and compare the no. of chars in a text field

  • August 11, 2011 at 2:22 am

    #255637

    Hi All

    I need to query a column in a particular table to find out which entries in that coulmn contain > 4000 characters, including spaces. The column has a 'text, null' datatype.

    I've been trying all sorts of LEN and DATALENGTH queries, but I just can't seem to get there. I'm sure it must be easier than I'm thinking! I've even tried converting the column to VARCHAR(MAX) but still no luck.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    P

  • August 11, 2011 at 2:30 am

    #1367099

    What exact syntax have you tried, and what errors, or unexpected results, do you get when you try it?

    John

  • August 11, 2011 at 2:51 am

    #1367111

    ...in fact, I think I'm there:

    SELECT LEN(column)

    FROM tablename

    WHERE LEN(column) > 0

    ORDER BY LEN(column) DESC;

    I ended up converting the TEXT datatype on that column to VARCHAR(MAX) first, and then re-trying one of my original attempts, which I think is the reason I was having trouble previously.

    I've double-checked by counting the chars in a few of the fields myself and it seems to be correct.

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