## Syntax ```mermaid %%{init: { 'theme': 'base', 'flowchart': { 'padding': '7', 'nodeSpacing': '20', 'rankSpacing': '20' }, 'themeVariables': { 'fontSize': '11px', 'fontFamily': 'Arial' } }}%% flowchart LR Start((START)) --> OCTET_LENGTH[OCTET_LENGTH]:::quoted OCTET_LENGTH --> End((END)) ``` ## Purpose The `OCTET_LENGTH` SQL function gets the number of bytes needed to represent a value. For a blob, this is the number of bytes of the blob. For all other data types, the value is first converted to a string and then the number of bytes of the UTF8 representation is determined. Parameters: - Value: value to determine length in bytes for. Returns: number of bytes needed to represent the value.