String.Length Property

The Length property returns the number of Char objects in this instance, not the number of Unicode characters. The reason is that a Unicode character might be represented by more than one Char. Use the System.Globalization.StringInfo class to work with each Unicode character instead of each Char.

In some languages, such as C and C++, a null character indicates the end of a string. In the .NET Framework, a null character can be embedded in a string. When a string includes one or more null characters, they are included in the length of the total string. For example, in the following string, the substrings "abc" and "def" are separated by a null character. The Length property returns 7, which indicates that it includes the six alphabetic characters as well as the null character.

StringBuilder charactersBuilder = new StringBuilder("abc");
string characters;

charactersBuilder.Append('\0');
charactersBuilder.Append("def");

characters = charactersBuilder.ToString();
Console.WriteLine(characters.Length);

The following example demonstrates the Length property.

// Sample for String.Length 
using System;

class Sample 
{
    public static void Main() 
    {
    string str = "abcdefg";
    Console.WriteLine("1) The length of '{0}' is {1}", str, str.Length);
    Console.WriteLine("2) The length of '{0}' is {1}", "xyz", "xyz".Length);
    }
}
/*
This example produces the following results:
1) The length of 'abcdefg' is 7
2) The length of 'xyz' is 3
*/

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98, Windows CE, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Xbox 360, Zune

The .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework do not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

.NET Framework

.NET Compact Framework

XNA Framework

Reference