util.string.len

Syntax

local length = util.string.len(
    input
)

Parameters

Type	Name	Description
`string`	input	String to measure

Returns

Type	Name	Description
`int`	length	Length of the string in bytes

Examples

Get the length of a string

local len = util.string.len("hello")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 5

Get the length of an empty string

local len = util.string.len("")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 0

Length includes spaces

local len = util.string.len("hello world")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 11

Length includes special characters

local len = util.string.len("hello\nworld")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 11

Length includes null bytes

local len = util.string.len("hello\0world")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 11

Get the length of a numeric string

local len = util.string.len("12345")

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 5

Use the # operator as an alternative

local len = #"hello"

core.engine.print("info", len) -- 5

Compare util.string.len and # operator

local str = "Lua programming"

core.engine.print("info", util.string.len(str)) -- 15
core.engine.print("info", #str) -- 15
core.engine.print("info", util.string.len(len)) -- 15

Multi-byte UTF-8 characters count as multiple bytes

local str = "hello™"

core.engine.print("info", util.string.len(str)) -- 8

Use length in a conditional check

if util.string.len("test") > 0 then
    core.engine.print("info", "String is not empty")
end

Compare length before and after trimming

local str = "  hello  "
local trimmed = util.string.gsub(str, "^%s+", "")
trimmed = util.string.gsub(trimmed, "%s+$", "")

core.engine.print("info", util.string.len(str)) -- 9
core.engine.print("info", util.string.len(trimmed)) -- 5

Syntax

Parameters

Returns

Examples

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