Count All Characters in All Rows of a Field in MySQL

The syntax is as follows to count all characters in all rows of a field −

select sum(char_length(yourColumnName)) AS anyAliasName from yourTableName;

To understand the above syntax, let us create a table. 

The query to create a table is as follows −

mysql> create table CountAllCharactersDemo
   -> (
   -> UserId int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   -> UserName varchar(20),
   -> UserSubject text
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.47 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command. The query is as follows −

mysql> insert into CountAllCharactersDemo(UserName,UserSubject)
values('Larry','Introduction To Java');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.19 sec)
mysql> insert into CountAllCharactersDemo(UserName,UserSubject)
values('Mike','Introduction To Computer Networks');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.21 sec)
mysql> insert into CountAllCharactersDemo(UserName,UserSubject)
values('Sam','Introduction To C');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.18 sec)
mysql> insert into CountAllCharactersDemo(UserName,UserSubject)
values('Carol','Introduction To Python');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.25 sec)
mysql> insert into CountAllCharactersDemo(UserName,UserSubject)
values('David','Introduction To Spring And Hibernate Framework');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement. The query is as follows −

mysql> select *from CountAllCharactersDemo;

Here is the output −

+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+
| UserId | UserName | UserSubject                                    |
+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+
| 1      | Larry    | Introduction To Java                           |
| 2      | Mike     | Introduction To Computer Networks              |
| 3      | Sam      | Introduction To C                              |
| 4      | Carol    | Introduction To Python                         |
| 5      | David    | Introduction To Spring And Hibernate Framework |
+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to count all characters in all rows of a field in MySQL.

Case 1 − Calculate total length.

The query is as follows −

mysql> select sum(char_length(UserSubject)) AS AllCharactersLength from
CountAllCharactersDemo;

Here is the output −

+---------------------+
| AllCharactersLength |
+---------------------+
| 138                 |
+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Case 2 − The query to calculate each row length −

mysql> select UserId,UserName,UserSubject,char_length(UserSubject) AS Length from
CountAllCharactersDemo;

The following is The output −

+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+--------+
| UserId | UserName | UserSubject                                    | Length |
+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+--------+
| 1      | Larry    | Introduction To Java                           | 20     |
| 2      | Mike     | Introduction To Computer Networks              | 33     |
| 3      | Sam      | Introduction To C                              | 17     |
| 4      | Carol    | Introduction To Python                         | 22     |
| 5      | David    | Introduction To Spring And Hibernate Framework | 46     |
+--------+----------+------------------------------------------------+--------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)