To determine the length of a string, Tcl provides the length
keyword. The length
command will return a decimal string containing the number of bytes used to represent the value contained within the variable in memory. Please note that as UTF-8 uses one to three bytes for Unicode characters; the byte length will not be the same as the character length, in most circumstances. The syntax of length
is as follows:
string length variable
In the following example, we will determine the byte length of a string of characters. Return values from the commands are provided for clarity. Enter the following command:
% set input "The end is nigh"
The end is nigh
% string length $input
15
3.145.107.100